Make Like Shooting Stars
by The-Queen-of-Fantasy
Summary: When you wish upon a star, it's usually in hopes that something unlikely will happen. But for a psychologist and engineer teaming up with our favorite captain and doctor, that wish is all they've got for a shot at romance and staying alive on a deadly planet. Jim\OC Bones\OC set pre- Into Darkness
1. Acquainted

**Welcome to another longer story with the next fandom. Be sure to let me know what you think!**

"Got all four back, now get 'em to the med-bay!" Dr. McCoy's deep voice barked. "I'm not letting frostbite take any appendages."

Straight from the transporter room Yasmine Roy found herself herded down the hallway mere steps behind the others from the mission. They were poked, prodded, flashed with lights and sensors and slowly the heated blanket around her shoulders began bringing up her body temperature.

Sulu had gotten the worst of it and was still hacking up water throughout the examinations. The tactical officer's scrape had been clotted by the ice while Captain Kirk's hair and face were still streaked with snow. After nearly an hour of testing and questions, being deemed otherwise healthy, the only thing Yasmine was treated for was bruising along her calf and then all at once she was unceremoniously shoved back into the corridor.

"Looks like I wasn't the only one who slept through sensitivity training," she muttered to the wall and an ensign passing by had to stifle his laughter.

Her room was only a level down with the other engineers' quarters and her snowsuit hit the floor of the bathroom with a crunch, freeing her to peel off the wetsuit underneath and stand under a scalding shower for as long as the system would let her. After that fifteen minutes, however, she trailed remaining droplets through the rest of the quarters in a practiced pattern of stowing her clothes while humming off-tune.

Still wrapped in her towel, she thumped down at the computer and whizzed through a few notifications. One was a ship-wide message with basic updates from the bridge, and like lightning she was struck with the memory of a favor the captain had asked of her before the mission. With her lower belly twisted into knots, she was dressed and back striding through the halls of the _Enterprise_ in no time.

Parts of her red uniform stuck to her frame where her bronze skin was still damp and then a warm hand closed around her elbow, the accompanying calm voice stopping her from pulling away.

"Yasmine! I'm glad to see you made it back with the rest." Doctor Nyla Harlow smiled pleasantly and studied the taller woman over her glasses.

The ship's resident psychologist had been Yasmine's roommate at the Academy and still made it her job to check in on her old friend, even if that friend was never as forthcoming as she'd like.

"Hey Doc, look, I'm not really in the mood to chat a ton right now." Being broken off her task for the captain made Yasmine snap a little harsher than she intended.

"I completely understand." Always patient as the day is long, Nyla was unbothered by it but still continued to muse, "I was just trying to get a straight account of what happened out there, I only have bits and pieces so far."

Running through the list of others in her head, Yasmine quickly realized she'd be the best bet for recounting the mission firsthand. Even though she did it best while intoxicated, storytelling was definitely one of her fortes. And damn that woman's sweet countenance, how could she deny her? The captain could wait a few minutes.

"Nyla one, me zero," she quipped with a smirk and gestured toward the nearest conference room. "You get your story."

With the two extremities of heat and cold finally dissipated, the bruising along her leg started a dull ache which was best relieved when she propped it up in the chair next to her. Nyla sat directly across from her, no pen or paper to be found; this was just her listening.

"So the mission was a quick survey and analysis of Epsilon IV," Yasmine began confidently, "an ice planet on the surface with this kinda badass amphibious species living in the caves and bodies of water underground. It was all good and well, we got in undetected, surveyed their advancement level, and there weren't any imminent natural threats that they couldn't handle. But on the way out we got a little turned around…"

 _Flashback_

" _I thought you said this was the way out," Captain Kirk's hushed voice echoed off of the stone wall in front of them._

 _The tactical officer looked around sheepishly, shaking the nav system in his red-stained hand. "Sir, I can't – I don't know if this is working after it got cracked." The block of ice that fractured the nav had also scratched a chunk from his bared forearm._

 _Squishing footsteps echoed from far behind them and the foursome scrambled to the left, breaking into a run when the footsteps did the same. Sulu was in pace with Yasmine with the backpack full of equipment bouncing behind him._

" _Roy, these samples are gonna freeze my spine soon, can you take this?"_

" _Not a good time to pause for anything!" she yelled back and felt a slick patch of ice skid under her feet._

 _Around the corner Kirk in the lead nearly fell right off a precipice into a lake hundreds of feet below, the only thing saving him being Sulu's grip on his hood. A quick flash of lights to her left yanked Yasmine's attention to more glass doors and she dashed toward them, the others hot on her heels._

 _When the doors slid shut behind them an extra locking mechanism echoed a click through the massive room filled with electronics, and a strange glow from above led the group to notice the ice ceiling far over their heads and the blurred blizzard whipping around beyond it._

" _The_ Enterprise _can't beam us up through that," Yasmine whispered mostly to herself, though it was enough to make the tactician run back and tug on the doors barring them in._

" _There's a grate up there!" Kirk yelled and pointed to the far side of the room where sure enough a few square patches on the ceiling were allowing snow and sunlight to filter in._

 _Yasmine's gaze desperately scraped the room and soon noticed that despite the complexity of the electronics along the walls they were all lined with glass and an idea struck her when she zeroed in on the control panel not far under the grate._

" _I can float us out of here!" Her cry echoed and they scrambled like a wobbly cluster of ice skaters across the room._

 _Sulu hoisted her to his shoulders with no hesitation and she slammed at the control panel with vague expertise of how the systems should work, though not without mishaps like blowing frosty air and lighting up an alarming array of flashes along the equipment._

 _Finally she unlocked the water systems controls and squeezed her eyes shut as she wrenched upwards on the lever that appeared. Out of every wall opened a massive tube that began blasting water into the room, gallons and gallons of hope to float them up._

 _Including from the tube in front of Sulu._

 _With a shout he was washed yards away and Yasmine fell to the side through the now-empty air below her to land with a bang on her shin, thankfully just out of reach of the tube. By the grace of an alien god it didn't feel broken but the accumulated water hadn't eased her fall so she still winced as Kirk helped her clamber to her feet._

" _Sulu!" he was yelling at the mop of hair poking from the surface of the rushing water as the backpack of equipment was floating farther and farther away._

 _The tactical officer waded as fast as he could toward him, though it soon became swimming because of the sheer amount of water pouring in. Yasmine treaded water violently as she watched him drag Sulu's face up and smack him on the back to kickstart the sputtering._

 _Kirk suddenly gripped her forearm and pointed to tubes along the far wall where amphibian guards were now also pouring in with the water. Their red scales made them fearsome and sleek as each stroke brought them closer to the_ Enterprise _crewmembers. But thankfully the officer, with a ragged Sulu in tow, made it back within an arm's length of Kirk first._

 _Yasmine called to him, "Captain, if I can shut off the water it should drag them away!"_

" _That means you've gotta get back under!" he responded without missing a beat. "Hang on to Sulu!"_

 _The rising water had finally pushed them high enough for Kirk to start beating on the grate and have it fall open with a clang. He held onto the edge of the ceiling as the officer clung to him with one arm and Sulu with the other. Yasmine tugged under her snow jacket to make sure her wetsuit was tight around her neck and with one hand grasping Sulu's ankle she dove beneath the surface._

 _The icy water stung her face but was fortunately crystal clear. She swam directly toward the control panel while splashing sounds swishing closer served as a watery timer counting down. When her leash ran out, she was just able to stretch from Sulu's leg to get a firm grip on the lever. Just as she went to push it down, cracks began appearing in the glass covering the electronics._

 _Maybe the room wasn't built to handle this volume of water. Oh well._

 _With a cry that let loose some air bubbles she slammed the lever back down and immediately felt the pull of the water draining away. Pushing off of the wall, she resurfaced to cling harder to a dazed Sulu and watch breathlessly as the receding water dragged the guards away with it._

" _I can't hold all of us," Kirk's cry came from the ceiling, "we have to get out!"_

 _Since some of the cumulative bottom weight was still supported by the water, he was able to climb out and one by one pull the others to the icy surface, not stopping until Yasmine was safely on her feet as the snow nipped like hundreds of tiny whips across their faces…_

 _End Flashback_

"And then we ran and tumbled through the blizzard yelling energize, almost got separated a few times until we were finally beamed up," Yasmine finished with a shrug, pleased at how the tale turned out.

With her face carefully neutral, Nyla bobbed an encouraging nod. "And was the equipment recovered?"

"Not at all, it's probably still floating down there with their electronics that also might be damaged."

"And how does that make you feel?"

"Oh no," Yasmine laughed gruffly as per usual when that phrase came up, "that was the story, I'm good now."

A raise of Nyla's brows implored her to stay. "Yasmine, you can give me something."

"It felt cold and a little rushed there at the end." The sass was tangible and both women smiled fondly through it. Yasmine stood to make her way out of the room when Nyla's voice called again.

"Well at least seeing everyone in those wetsuits must have been entertaining. I'm always thrilled."

Yasmine gave a wry smirk from the doorway. "It's alright, Doc, I don't need cheering up."

The turbo lift at the end of the hallway was crowded but Yasmine still squeezed herself in with sheer determination and a bit of wiggling because she was not about to be kept from the captain's task any longer. She rode all the way up to the level below the bridge, giving a curt nod to the one yeoman left as she exited.

The click of her boots against the gleaming floors was lost in the pacing of passersby but shortly she found what she was looking for when it strolled assuredly around the corner.

Corridor traffic shifted to accommodate a path for Captain Kirk and his stride, and he addressed Yasmine directly as soon as the space would allow it. "Lieutenant Roy, you're looking rested. Are you still available today concerning that favor –"

"This is me reporting for duty, sir," she kept his gaze smoothly and her answer even smoother, "my apologies for the wait."

His head dipped in confirmation and he whisked away again, the faint minty scent of aftershave wafting over to Yasmine in his wake. Resounding purpose guided her steps the opposite direction around two corners left and one right and finally to an unassuming room off of an emptier corridor.

Room 4112 was a currently unoccupied living quarters that had served its purpose quite nicely thus far. Once inside, Yasmine keyed in the code to keep the door locked and whirled to face the figure at the other side of the room.

Kirk was leaned against the desk, the black shirt along his shoulders slouched comfortably with him. A warm grin had softened his face from commanding officer to regular carefree man, and it was that man that spoke to her this time.

"What was that with 'reporting for duty'? We're not robots, Yaz."

"Maybe it's best to act like it around other crewmembers." She shrugged off his teasing. "There can be a lot of prying eyes and ears out there."

"Well thank our lucky stars for 4112, hm?" He silently called her over to him with a crook of his finger and the smirk that she'd follow anywhere.

The space between them closed effortlessly through long strides and then his lips were on hers, capturing her breath and thoughts while everything else melted away. The familiar aftershave was that much stronger when she was pressed up against it and was a trigger for the desire igniting in her core.

Being friends with benefits had been established in a record three days after she was introduced to Kirk in San Francisco, and so it was an added bonus when she and a few fellow engineers were assigned to the _Enterprise_. After full threats to cut it off if any of his crew friends found out, Yasmine found absolute delight in the thrill of secrecy.

And the continued great sex, of course.

"Hey," he mumbled into her hair as practiced hands unzipped the back of her skirt, "we did good out there."

She was almost too caught up in nibbling marks into the base of his neck to reply. "Is this the time for evals, Jim?"

"Take the compliment, would ya? Captain's orders," he added with an alluring half-smile.

Using the weight of leaning back she helped lift his shirt off, all the while her eyes blazing hot with yearning against his. She let the heat simmer, anticipation sparking where their skin touched, and finally leaned forward to whisper, "Aye, captain," punctuating with a nip to his earlobe.

A low groan rumbled from his chest to hers and she was walked backwards until he could fall and enclose her against the bed, her skirt having dropped down and off along the way. One sweeping motion brought his entirety flush against hers and a burning kiss completed the seal, and all at once the room was almost too small for all the heat and friction.

He then wouldn't leave her jaw alone, nipping and pecking at her favorite maddening pace and then his goddamn smirk against her skin was enough to tear her in two. In turn her hands blindly explored down his body, first pulling at the sandy blonde spikes and then taking in a warm and heaving chest and skittering over muscles until she reached his pants. They'd never taken this long to strip totally down and it was obvious by the way he was nearly rutting into her hand that he was quite ready.

Yasmine bit into his lower lip, a tried and true method to daze him, and said, "You've got ten seconds to get those off."

"I also have yet to see these," he shot back, sneaking a hand up to grab her breast through her shirt.

She wriggled out of her offending articles as Kirk's hit the floor and then he was back on her, a sheen of sweat slick between them to ease the fresh skin together. Her lids fluttered at the delicious pressure and it was hard to imagine the icy struggles from hours earlier when the extent of her thoughts ended at his flesh.

"Finally." His eyes razed over her with delight at the effect the air against her was having and apparently he was thinking the same thing when he continued, "Still cold from Epsilon, hm?"

His sudden descent on her chest had her barking a laugh, his burning mouth tugging at the nipple with expertise he could put on a résumé. She was panting through an upcurved mouth and could feel herself nearly dripping at his ministrations while the familiar coil tightened in her belly under his happy trail.

Her fingers danced and reached the nape of his neck to find the spot where there should be grooves after how many times she'd scratched there, and finding that rhythm again she also rediscovered a retort. "That's funny, you usually say how you can't get enough of how hot I am."

His mouth flashed up to hers to press a silencing kiss. "Not that I've forgotten."

A wide smile bared her teeth against his and they nearly collided from how hard she kissed back, combating the frustratingly delicate pattern of his fingers tracing down her leg to hook an ankle behind his back. He was throbbing and it took a single thrust to fill her completely, stealing precious air from them that she would have gladly relinquished anyway.

He was a moaner and she echoed each one in a sinful harmony of rocking and rolling against him, needy hands pushing and grabbing and grasping for aide toward the blinding peak. The aide came as a single finger slipping down to massage her clit, the slow circles tearing at her sanity and she gripped him impossibly closer in an attempt to not slip away. With her teeth scraping at his shoulder, however, he grunted obscenely and shuddered as he came hard, the heat dragging her along to the reckless and breathless abandon.

Fire blazed to every nerve ending and staggering bliss rippled behind like the blustering winds of a solar storm, leaving her only able to clutch Kirk, gasping and murmuring vulgarities through gritted teeth. Stuttering hips rode them through the end until his forehead found its usual resting place between her breasts and she let herself melt into the duvet, happy to check 'relieve stress' off of her to-do list for that day.

He rolled off of her, nodding his thanks as their normal heartrates resurfaced. "Good shit, Yaz."

"Haven't lost our touch, I know."

The stillness of the room held no immediate responsibilities, something Yasmine looked forward to almost as much as the romp itself, and so it was with reluctance that she eventually peeled herself from Kirk and the bed and began to gather her strewn clothing.

"Don't forget the mission debriefing tomorrow at 0700," Kirk muttered before landing a slap to her ass where she was bent to scoop up her bra.

All she could manage was a pleased scoff when she faced his insolent smirk. He could never resist another touch and to stop herself for diving for round two, she countered, "You're actually doing one this time, hm?"

"Yeah, Pike will get on my ass if I don't."

"Tell him I already get your ass on the regular," she offered simply and disappeared into the tiny bathroom.

The faucet in 4112 was half broken but in order to not give them away she just dealt with the faint trickle it offered, meaning it took twice as long to splash warm water where it was necessary. The mirror begged for a swathe of her attention as well, and once her long tangles of hair no longer screamed clandestine sex she redressed and strutted back out past Kirk.

"See you on the bridge in a bit, Captain," she said and waited for a reply, but stopped by the door when a loud snore rang out.

Yasmine turned and regarded him where he was sprawled even wider on the bed than before, dead asleep. Tiring pleasure was as good as a tranquilizer for him and all she could do was toss his shirt over him for decency in case he was found later, a shrewd grin tugging at her lips.

"The best and brightest still get naps, apparently."


	2. Can't Feel My Face

After a day stock full of one-on-one interviews with the crew of the most recently failed mission, Nyla Harlow finally escaped the confines of her office and strolled through the open air hallways of the _Enterprise._ She dipped respectful nods to her colleagues, full head of unruly curls bobbing along with the motion. She toyed with the two silver rings around the ends of her blue uniform sleeves, pulling them down over dark tan hands to ward off the chill to the air that the ship could not seem to shake since they departed from Epsilon IV hours ago.

Her meeting with Lieutenant Roy had been so constructive, she decided to call in the rest of the away team for thorough analysis. The tactician present had hobbled in first with a fresh order of discharge from Bones' care. He talked for hours on end, lodging complaints about every facet of the mission save any that would gain him additional medication besides those required to treat his injuries. Kirk had surfaced a while after that, all sleepy eyes and a satisfied smile that Nyla could not pry her way past. Sulu had been her last subject, quick and efficient before ducking back into the swing of his responsibilities.

It took the remainder of the day to sort through her conclusions and organize all the documents into suitable folders. But now that she was released from active duty, and with no message on her communicator from the Doctor she waited to confer with, she sought out her most recent visitor and closest friend.

"There's my foxy little space fencer."

Sulu glanced up from his desk screen, offering a roll of his eyes toward the approaching Doctor. "You done psychoanalyzing my team already, Egyptian valley squirrel?" he inquired. His yellow shirt was pushed up to his elbows and there was an indention on his cheek from where he had been leaning against his fist.

"Oh, honey, leave the affectionate names to me. But yes I have. Your charts are clean, Hikaru. Like, if I were to ever construct a class about the ideal human mind, it would be yours. It's a little alarming how well you handle stress."

"Are you trying to make me feel bad for being a stable human being?" he spun in his chair to raise both eyebrows at her.

"No, I love you for it. Where's the Beta shift?" Nyla seated herself in the navigator's chair to his right.

"I'm waiting to be relieved by them. The captain retired early and I dismissed everyone else because it's a slow night and everyone needs to recover from the mayhem of today."

Nyla hummed, twirling back and forth in Ensign Chekov's seat, letting her eyes dance over the colorful array of buttons lining the control room. The white walls were meant to make it seem more spacious than it actually was, but usually more than a dozen people were crammed into the tight space, practically crawling over each other to fulfill their jobs.

Her infrequent visits to this level reminded her just how much she appreciated her separate office and sleep space. As the only Psychologist on board, and therefore the Chief, she was the sole occupant of a room that was designed to sleep two. One would think being out in the great frontier of space offered plenty of spare room, but the ships were built to be compact and efficient, offering no excesses of anything.

The faint rasp to his breathing told of the few dozen gallons of water he'd swallowed earlier. The report Sulu brought up to his psych session from the Senior Medical Officer after his release contained a personal note from Bones to Nyla in illegible writing complaining of the unnecessary injuries. He was always so concerned with every minor cut his patients brought to him. Something larger, like the mishap on the Epsilon IV, turned the entire med bay into a storm cloud of his irritable cursing.

"You don't have to stay up with me. I know you've got an early shift tomorrow," Sulu said, glancing over from his work.

"Oh, I'm waiting for Leonard. We're supposed to compare notes from our patients today, make sure no one is about to keel over. He's late." She smiled sweetly at him and an endeared smile pressed his lips up in return.

"Bones, eh?" He latched on to the one bit of her statement that she knew he would.

"You might know him. He's the medical doctor on board. My counterpart for this voyage. Blue shirt, big brown eyes, cynicism you can feel from a separate solar system. We've only been working alongside each other for a few months. Though after trauma like yours, some block out recent events to keep from letting the stress of the events overwhelm them. Maybe that's what's happening here. Maybe this is how you are coping with that horrible excuse for a mission." Nyla leaned closer to inspect him, only half kidding around.

Sulu began swiping open documents into a file on his desk screen. He crossed his legs and shook his head in exasperation. "I hate it when you mix medical speak with sarcasm. I can't ever tell if I'm about to be diagnosed with something deadly or if I just need to stop being your friend."

Nyla grinned, laugh bubbling up to fill the empty space of the room. A chime came from her comm, flashing Bones' name across the transparent screen. Nyla got up, bouncing on her toes as she waved goodbye. "Tell Ben I said hi."

"Tell Bones I said to make his damn move already," Sulu called back.

"There are no moves to be made. Stop projecting your happy relationship into my functional workplace."

Sulu screwed up his face and spun back around dramatically.

The walk to the agreed upon meeting place was long enough to let her thoughts wander ahead to the man she would be consulting with. His tongue was as sharp as his mind and Nyla like the reeling feeling he left her with, always racing to keep up with his train of thought. Their biweekly conferences always left her feeling better about the work she did on the ship. She admired the man, sure. She enjoyed hearing his well-qualified opinion, but she was not about to jump his bones as Sulu so often suggested.

The bar was the one area of the ship that was always quiet. Free time was a luxury and drinking was not something strictly encouraged. The dark room was cut only by the light of the stars that leaked in through the window. The heavy atmosphere was meant to discourage people and steer them back to their jobs, but Nyla and Bones always found it a relaxing setting to discuss otherwise tedious work subjects.

It was a Wednesday night and the couch in the corner of the bar room housed two women just trying to encourage themselves through the rest of the week. Bones was seated at the island positioned against the far wall, tracing his fingers around an empty shot glass. His broad shoulder hunkered in slightly, his head heavy on his neck.

She maneuvered through still atmosphere, kicking aside an empty beer bottle before plopping down beside Bones with one stool between them to serve as a professional buffer.

"Hello, Leonard," she said, as her usual order of red wine was placed wordlessly in front of her by the barista. He only worked the busiest hours, 1700-2100. The rest of the time, the crew had to fend for themselves when it came to liquor.

"Thank you, Tex."

"This isn't your usual day," he replied, tugging at the ends of his mid drift revealing grey shirt to cover the roll of fat that peaked out from beneath. "Suppose with the mishaps lately an extra meeting couldn't hurt though. Say, Dr. McCoy, that quick take off put this crick in my neck that I can't seem to shake," Tax turned to address Bones.

The man at Nyla's side shook himself into reality and raised a hand to touch where Tex indicated. "I think that's just acne," Bones told him.

"Gross," Tex swung his cleaning rag over his shoulder. "Thanks, though." He set about his usual work.

Bones massaged the back of his own neck as he turned to face Nyla. "Sorry I took so long. I've been running all over hell's half acre. With all the extra patients today there was a shit ton of paperwork I had to sort out. I'm still not done. I'll be doing that tonight instead of actually sleeping, apparently."

"I understand. I heard so many different accounts, I'm beginning to think they were all on separate missions. I had seven whole patients today instead of the usual three."

"Hey, quit that. You're the Hoover Dam to those three regulars, keeping them from spilling their crazy onto the rest of us. And I'm sure you were great today. You damn well always are." His words came out as a growl but there was a tenderness underlying them.

"One of them is James. He mostly just shows up to gossip with me and complain where no one can hear him. The crew that went down today seems stable though, stressed and frazzled maybe but no one is going to start disassociating or switch personalities on us. They're a good crew. They know how to cope when things like this happen."

Nyla sipped at her wine, letting it warm her belly and wind down her overanalyzing mind. Bones' brown eyes reminded her of melted chocolate tonight, sweet and able to cure even the worst of symptoms for both the ailing crew and herself.

"Even the tactician? He took the worst of the injuries. And what about Lieutenant Roy? She blames herself."

"They all checked out. I have to say, this is the most boring crew I've ever traveled with. Spock would be fascinating if I could only get him into therapy. And while I enjoy my chats with James, he never really opens up. They're a tad frustrating in truth."

"If you're gonna vent this much maybe I should find you a couch to recline on, Ny." The edges of his perpetually hard mouth crinkled against his skin, a smile threatening to break free. "Though, I understand the frustration at Jim. He can be a little shit, well, most days."

Nyla beamed up at him, watching the hues of his eyes melt all over again. They were good outlets for each other.

"How are you, Leonard? How are you handling yet another day spent in space? It's quite admirable for you to continue facing your fear like this," she turned the conversation on its head without an effort.

"I don't have a goddamn choice at this point. I'll stay on the big safe ship a few more days before running home in some wimp ass little shuttle. You don't congratulate a pig walking around his pen waiting to be slaughtered."

"That was weirdly graphic. You'd make some good bacon, though, so I won't disagree." Nyla grimaced and took a long sip of her wine to keep from saying even more suggestive things. The last thing she needed was for him to misinterpret something and start severing their colleagueship.

Aside from the tilt of his head and the quirk of an eyebrow, Bones let it slide. Probably because another whiskey was set before him.

"No beer tonight?" Nyla asked.

"Needed something stronger," he replied.

"I'll try one. Tex?"

"That's the last of it, Dr. Harlow. Apologies. We're running out of stock since we're nearing the end of this voyage," Tex said.

Bones pushed the glass over and Nyla slid into the seat closest to him to accept it. His forearm was pressed against hers at this proximity, but she paid it no mind as the alcohol sang down her esophagus, leaving little flames burning in its wake.

"Jesus Christ, that's…" she cleared her throat. "That's weak sauce. I literally felt nothing. If I ever wanted to drink to not get drunk, I would do it with this stuff." She hid a cough in the crook of her elbow.

The fact that her voice came out as nothing more than a strained rasp drew a laugh from Bones. He barked with it, whole body opening up to let the welcome change in emotions wash over him. His hand fell between her shoulder blades, pressing like a hot fire poker straight through her uniform shirt. She shifted to get him to remove his hand and Bones let it fall to his thigh, squeezing slightly while he regained control of himself.

"I guess, um, I guess this was relatively easy then. Not like that one time Chekov swore he was seeing the ghost of Julius Caesar following him around. That took us days to resolve." Bones said.

"I seriously thought we would have to send him home. He would show up in my room in the dead of night babbling about the Roman Empire. I didn't like history class the first time around."

"And that's why we don't let him eat strange berries from new planets ever again."

Bones reached for one of the water glasses Tex dutifully set before him and Nyla seized her own. She traced a finger up the sides, catching the condensation against her fingertips. Bones glanced over, mouth chewing over words in his mouth. He said nothing, though and downed the water.

"I guess I should dive into that paperwork before it tries to take a piece out of my ass." He stood, stretching out his legs slowly and offering out his hand to help her down, ever the gentleman.

"Thanks, Leonard." Nyla left her water untouched and let her hand slide into his as she hopped down from the tall stools.

They stood for a moment like that, connected by the lightest of touches, his thumb tracing slowly over the inside of her wrist. Coworkers did that. Coworkers gazed at each other platonically. Nyla could convince herself of these things if she tried hard enough, but knew better. She knew the warnings signs of someone becoming attached and still she opened her big mouth.

"Need some help?" Maybe she was reading him wrong or it was just Sulu's teasing getting to her. She should not send her friend to drown in mountains of paper just because she was over thinking something, right?

"You want to help me with paperwork?" he asked, scoffing at the idea.

"I once stayed up with Yasmine, you know Yasmine Roy, my college roommate, anyway I stayed up with her all night to help her finish a last minute presentation that she forgot about. Let me just tell you how many notes we had to sort through in order to make her bullshit seem like she knew she was talking about. Now, she's a smart girl, a little overly blunt, but a brilliant engineer, but that was just one of her off nights. Now…I swear that story started out with a point." Nyla reclaimed her hand and stuffed it into the pocket of her pants.

"You love people. You just want to be nosy." Bones summarized. Still, he waved her after him as he started down the hallways.

After three turns, Nyla realized the gravity of her error—they were not headed in the direction of his office as she had tragically assumed, but his sleeping compartment. She was a moment away from making up an excuse to bail when he keyed into his room and the door slid back. Her imagination of mounds of papers was not an exaggeration. There at least seemed to be some sort of organizational system in place, but Bones would not be finishing this by himself in the next millennium.

"This is all from today?" she asked.

Bones scratched at the back of his neck. "To be fair, I didn't know there had to be hard copies of all my files for the archive back on earth until last month. It's a damned pain and I've been putting it off since then."

Nyla sighed and pushed up her long sleeves to her elbows. "This makes me appreciate my limited patients now. Alright, let's get to it then."

"You're a saint," he breathed following her inside and letting the door slide shut behind them.

Somehow, as the night wore on and the papers dwindled to a few remaining, they ended up sitting side by side, scribbling in handwriting that no longer appeared English. Her boots were discarded in the corner and her black pants rolled up to her knees. Her glassed were lost in the mess of her hair, holding the beast at bay so she could squint at the tiny print on the pages.

Bones had discarded his blue shirt, leaving him in the simple black one he wore beneath. His hair, always neatly combed into submission, now jutted in every direction from the multitude of times his hand passed through it. Nyla thought he wore under eye bags better than she did and quickly shook herself back into focus. She blinked sleep from her eyes, ignoring the persistent time on her watch as she passed Bones the last page requiring his signature. He yawned, pen fumbling over the loops in his name.

When he finished, she swept it up along with the file he had been staring at the past half hour and stood to go add them to their respective piles: non-threatening foreign diseases and postmortem.

"You don't have to do that, Ny," Bones spoke through another yawn.

She turned, unruly curls falling into her face as her glasses tumbled to find freedom on his floor, and found him very much in her bubble space. Her hands splayed over his chest in a startled attempt to keep respectable distance between them. His eyes glinted with a newfound alertness, his breath coming and going just as quickly as his usual sharp repartee.

Goodnight was on her lips, a civil farewell meant to set them both straight in their veering paths. But it was too late, she was crashing into him and could not seem to detangle herself from the wreckage this night had become. All she could do now was deal with the damage of letting him too close, of not watching her actions close enough. He was a friend, a colleague, and a contained ship was the last place she needed to lose track of her emotions.

But then his mouth curved up in a smile she had seen directed at many an unsuspecting woman and she found herself helpless in the grip of the ornery man's charisma. "Don't suppose we'll get a break today from the usual mishaps and emergencies to get in a goddamn nap," he said.

"Probably not," Nyla murmured, unable to rip her gaze away from. She was not a fly caught in his web. She was merely dazzled in the realization that he was turning the full force of his ability to woo a woman with just the gravel in his accent and five o'clock shadow on her.

"Do you want to grab some coffee before we head back out there?" Bones asked. This was no longer casual; this was him treading past the coworker line with a pointed question.

Her hand jutted out between them, a painfully evident gesture. Bones shook it slowly, face a wash of emotions that Nyla was too tired to decipher. She ducked to claim her glasses and set them on her nose to allow herself composition time. "I need to shower first. But I'll see you around, Dr. McCoy." She told herself the use of his title and last name was enough to chase the images of her in a shower she had no doubt planted.

"Right," he cleared his throat, rubbing his knuckles over the palm of his other hand. "Well thanks for all the help." His jaw slammed shut abruptly, severing whatever words had been on the heels of those.

Nyla took her leave hastily, forcing him from her mind just as swiftly.


	3. Real Life

If James T. Kirk was such a rule breaker, you'd think he could manage to break the one about holding debriefings before the crack of an Earth dawn. Yasmine didn't mind the 0645 walk down her corridor when it was a trek to her desk to run the morning systems' sweep, but to sit and listen? The cooks would have to pull extra espresso from space itself.

"Lieutenant." The sharp voice of one Hikaru Sulu cut directly toward her and he fell into pace with her smart steps.

"Lieutenant," she volleyed back.

There wasn't much else to be said as the winding halls gave way to the turbo lift and then to the conference deck. Sulu waved her in first and then took his own seat in the plush black chairs, tapping his mug against hers once in a bit of bleary solidarity.

They weren't the first to make it to the meeting, the pair from Research and Development had probably been sitting pretty in their seats for a half hour to win some unspoken game of punctuality. The historian traipsed in with the three from Logistics, and then the tactician with his bandaged arm and more pills in a bottle than a regular junkie.

Second to last to swing into a chair was Yasmine's supervisor himself, Mr. Scott. He was to serve as a chief witness to the debriefing's existence, something Pike no doubt required to keep this captain in check. Otherwise he was the lucky one free to tune out the yammering, even if it came from so pretty a mouth as Jim's.

"Careful with that braid, lassie," he chirped and gave her dark rope a tug, "there's a few night owls in here who might wanna try a strangle at this hour."

"I call dibs," Sulu piped up and the three snickered quietly as one golden boy captain moseyed into the room.

He kept his gaze trained away from Yasmine as he passed them but flicked his eyes her way when he made it to the spotless podium front and center. Her imperceptible nod was what she offered in hello, along with a sympathetic twist of her lips. With his pad set up and some notes projected onto the wall he scuffed his heel around as he bided a few minutes until they officially started.

When the air had almost become stale with waiting, Kirk broke the silence with a firm cough. "Alright, I get it, none of us are very thrilled at trudging through this red tape. But if you'll listen and just let me talk, we can be done in no time. So for those of you who happened to be under a rock yesterday, there was a brief mission on Epsilon IV that myself, Lieutenants Sulu and Roy, and Tactician Iker carried out."

Kirk let loose a myriad of impatient ticks while he gave the mission description, from shuffling feet to clearing his throat. Icing on the cake for Yasmine's amusement was the sheer number of times he looked her way, and while she was against public flirting it was endlessly entertaining during this boring meeting. It would be easy enough to play off their nonverbal conversations as him simply being restless with his burning gaze.

"Captain."

"Yes, Mr. Scott?" Kirk's stare once again feathered over Yasmine only to shift behind her to take in the Scotsman.

"Have you got an aftermath summary for me to report? I could easily be convinced to cut this short." A man bringing saving grace had never sounded so smug.

"Yes again, Scotty." Kirk's countenance brightened and he skipped directly to the last page. "Well, none of the species' major systems were permanently damaged and despite not retaining samples, we did learn a good bit about their culture by subtly observing them. Good work."

A collective sigh eased away the tension from the stark atmosphere and they were almost home free when Tactician Iker spoke up, leaving Yasmine wanting to duct tape him.

"Captain, aren't we about to pass another aggressive planet? Do we have plans to interact with them like on Epsilon IV?"

"Iker, hm." Kirk laughed and tried to wave off the question that was sure to extend the meeting. "You've been looking at the maps with Ensign Chekov again, haven't you?"

"Indeed he has, Captain. And he has a valid concern." A new voice, strangely calm and collected, came from the doorway. Spock had a pad tucked in one hand and stood unwavering under the many stares that turned and fell on him. "I believe distributing our initial analysis on the planet Drusus would be beneficial, especially to those gathered here."

"Mr. Spock, is this really –"

"Captain, if you truly wish for me to discontinue I will immediately, but many of the crew here will likely compose those who will come into contact with the Drususians, if we proceed that way." Spock still hovered at the door until Kirk sighed and waved him in. "It will only take a moment."

Kirk scoffed and swayed into the frontmost chair and let it swivel with his annoyance, and it went far enough to allow one glance at an expectant Yasmine. She shrugged, what was one to do with a Vulcan in the morning.

Of course a moment turned into five and then into a few minutes that Yasmine found herself tuning in and out of. The parts that she did catch of this Drusus included that they were humanoids extremely advanced in all aspects, yet were hostile and had returned to a more ancient system of government and living. She hadn't heard of any command orders dictating the _Enterprise_ as the ship deemed to make contact with Drusus, but her plush chair held her captive to listen anyway.

"So they're so forwards they're backwards?" a now interested Kirk summarized.

"Affirmative."

The room then fell quiet again save for the whirring of the air conditioning too early in the morning. Shuffling feet signaled dismissal and Yasmine's boots did the same, bringing her all the way out of the door back toward her normal routine before a voice called her to a stop. It was Scotty, and with a quick whistle and turn of his head he called her to follow him the opposite way down the corridor.

It was just the two of them in the turbo lift and as soon as it slid shut he was facing her again, a peculiar quirk in his brow.

"Now, Lieutenant Roy." Scotty had a tendency to take people under his wing at random and Yasmine recognized this voice as the father figure surfacing.

"Yes, Engineer Scott."

"How long have you been working for me?"

Her gaze was trained on the lights slowly leading them toward the correct deck. "Just shy of two months, sir."

"And how many times have I seen you interacting at all tenderly with your fellow male engineers?" There was a slight smile to his tone as he obviously circled whatever his real question was.

"I believe none, sir, especially while in task."

"Then would you run me through why, pray tell, you and our own Captain Kirk were throwing lovers' glances back and forth like a game?"

Yasmine kept her breathing steady, the explanation coming easily to her lips. "With the exception of the few times his gaze made it around the room to me, I'm lost on your point."

"C'mon lassie, I saw those eyes. Jim's got pretty ridiculous ones, eh?" He nudged her shoulder and his own eyes were twinkling at her. "But look, I cannae stand here and say that wasn't real fondness between youse."

"I think you're mistaking camaraderie for fondness. He was looking because I was one of the other ones on the mission."

His pursed lips let on that he wasn't convinced, but Yasmine was not about to give them away. She wanted her and Kirk's relationship to stay beneficial, period, and was confident he felt the same. She'd just have to warm him about bedroom eyes in public.

"Alright, Yazzie, I'll leave you be about it. Now come run a damn systems' check from my deck for a change? Your desk on the bridge can wait."

She hummed a long note of agreement and followed him to Engineering, finding a pad easily and tapping away through the routine. One small thing kept nagging at her throughout, though she didn't let it manifest fully until she was back on her way to the bridge.

Fondness. Scotty was on and on about this fondness. He seemed committed to the idea that all those glances he'd clearly picked up on were of a much sweeter variety than Yasmine seemed to have noticed. But she put it out of her mind easily as the doors to the bridge slid open and she was met with yet another typical coy glance from the captain.

See? No wayward feelings.

* * *

Nyla's love affair with the coffee maker was well known throughout the ship. Her moans as she devoured the scalding caffeine each morning could be heard from hallways away and those in her path knew to part for her bright morning eyes; anyone caught in the crosshairs would be peppered with question after question inquiring as to their wellbeing. Today, however, not a soul caught sight of her until noon rolled around and Nyla finally stumbled out of her office, clutching the largest coffee her hands could wrap around.

After leaving Bones, she granted herself a brief shower before forcing her bone tired feet to carry her to her office desk where she promptly fell fast asleep, drooling all over her notes. Even after the few hours of captured sleep, she could not shake the grogginess slowing her muscles or ward off what felt like a throng of African war drums pounding against her temples.

She was on a man hunt for Captain James T. Kirk. Months on end in space and he was the only crew member who had yet to tell her anything about his life aside from petty squabbles. Today, she was determined to wring something out of that insufferable yellow shirt. Searching his room and med bay, where she found him more often than not, yielded no results. Now, she was trudging her way through the swarm of people flooding the hallways to acquire lunch and made her way up to the bridge.

"Doctor Harlow," a voice called. Her heart gave a pathetic stutter when the only thing she saw was a blue shirt and a dark head of hair attached to it. Then, Spock stepped out of the crowd of people and Nyla's pulse returned to a reasonable rate.

"Commander Spock," she replied, attempting to force a smile to her weary lips and ending up merely grimacing.

"How can I help you today?" he replied.

"Is our captain on the bridge? I need to give him a shake down."

"I am certain that would be well deserved on his part. I believe the captain returned to the bridge with Lieutenant Roy and Doctor McCoy."

"Of course he is. How does he ever get work done?" she grumbled.

Spock inclined his head, smile pulling at his mouth as the woman so normally out of reach from any negative emotion irritably chugged her coffee. "I do believe I have some spare time on my schedule if you wish me to stop by your office, Doctor," he said.

"I'm no use today. Tomorrow?" she asked.

A dip of Spock's head confirmed their appointment as the flow of people finally ceased. She would be excited for quality time with him once she had at least a full night of sleep under her belt. She would not inflict her foul mood on the good intentioned First Officer. James Kirk, however, she was fine with giving a piece of her mind.

With the hallway clear, Nyla finally entered the empty elevator and leaned against the railing while it hummed away. She shut her eyes for a moment, drawing a slow breath through her nose and the last of her coffee into her stomach.

When she opened her eyes, the elevator doors were ajar, waiting impatiently for her to exit. She strode forward, taking in the three occupants of the bridge. Kirk wore a dopey grin and had his gaze trained on the backside of Yasmine as she leaned against the back of the Helmsman chair and teased Bones with a lazy smirk on her lips. Bones was in the midst of rolling his eyes at her and the captain when he spotted Nyla emerging onto the deck.

"Love the sex hair, Doc," Yasmine called.

"You look sick," Kirk said.

Bones, in response, instantly pressed his hand to Nyla's forehead. Well, now she was warm. Heat licked up her skin at the memory of the embarrassment the previous night held. "You don't have a fever," he noted.

"I know. I feel hungover. I'm too old to be pulling all-nighters," she grumbled, swaying slightly on her feet. Bones shifted closer, poised to catch her if she keeled over on the spot.

"Who kept you up all night?" Kirk's eyebrows wagged to the stars and back, his eyes sparkling with their light. "Did it have something to do with…" His hands motioned wildly to illustrate the big frizzy mess her hair resembled.

"Just Leonard," Nyla replied, self-consciously smoothing a hand over half her curls only to feel them bounce right back out of place.

Kirk had the misfortune of sipping at his water at that moment and nearly choked on it. Yasmine rubbed his back, clicking her tongue as he coughed the water clear of his lungs. "Just?" she asked, hand lingering just slightly on their commanding officer.

"We were working, you horny buffoon," Bones grumbled.

"Understood." Kirk threw a wink that said he most certainly did not.

"How'd the debriefing go?" Nyla asked.

"Spock yanked the rug out from under my feet soon as I was done. And we're not doing this today, Doc. I already let you delve into this young promising mind yesterday."

"You gave me nothing to work with, James. Just one more session, please," she begged.

"'Fraid not," Kirk clipped.

Nyla felt her eye twitch either from the amount of caffeine in her system or his refusal to comply. Her mouth opened to lay into him when Yasmine positioned herself between the two.

"Anyone else hungry?" She played off the peacekeeping attempt casually.

"Starved," Bones agreed. His hand fell unconsciously to the small of Nyla's back, sapping the anger from her system effectively. She blinked up at him. She blinked again. How could he do that?

A flicker of the window indicated a hail along with a chime that ended the conversation. All turned their attention to the screen as a woman's face flashed on and off. Kirk furrowed his brow and called over the intercom for the crew to end their lunch break early and make their ways back to the Bridge. Uhura arrived first, saw the shaky connection and touched one button at her desk to stabilize it. The woman's face came into focus, more importantly her uniform came through: a yellow Star Fleet shirt.

"Is anyone receiving me?" she asked. She swallowed, brown eyes flickering as she took note of something alarming off screen.

"We receive you, Captain," Kirk replied.

"You're real. Oh, thank god. I'm just a Commander, Commander Y'hara, acting Captain for the U.S.S. _Martian_. I was beginning to worry no one would come by here. Listen, our engines and transporters have been stalled by these dastardly Drususians and we still have a man down there, our Captain actually and our communications are blocked with them, so we can't actually negotiate for his return. We were just here to promote public relations when they became hostile and kidnapped the Captain."

"Captain Kirk at you service, Commander Y'hara. I can have a recovery team down there shortly to retrieve your Captain. We will also come to you and our head engineer, Mr. Scott will take a look at those engines of yours." Kirk threw out a wink that had the Commander's already hot pink skin flushing a few shades darker.

"You're most kind. Our Captain's name is Max Whitney. He'll be most grateful to see you."

"I'll hail you again when all the preparations have been made. Hang tight over there. Kirk out."

"Captain," Yasmine jumped up readily as soon as the screen cut off, "I'm ready to assist with the team that will be on the ground."

"Wonderful. You can join me. Uhura would you mind as well? May need to communicate with the locals," Kirk said.

"Perhaps," Spock joined them on the Bridge, "it would be best if we took a more incognito approach if possible. If they are as hostile as the reports indicate, then more Star Fleet officers would not be welcome."

"You mean some fancy ass costumes?" Bones asked dryly.

"Along with someone who is capable of helping us blend while we seek out the missing Captain. Someone who can read body language about the culture around us and can see past mere words."

Nyla was rubbing a sticky spot from her pants and glanced up when silence followed the statement. "What?" she asked when she found all eyes fixed on her.

"She's not trained in the field," Yasmine blurted.

Nyla blinked, unsure whether to be reassured that the woman was protecting her or offended that she did not view her as up to the challenge.

"Us?" Kirk spoke. "I don't remember inviting you, Spock."

"You lot are going to get yourselves killed. I'm coming, too," Bones input.

"Whoa, too? I didn't agree to this. Commander Spock, I appreciate the confidence, but I'll be more hindrance than use," Nyla argued.

"No, I like the idea." Kirk rebutted. "Doctor Harlow, you're now under orders to accompany us. Get some sleep then be ready to get to work. Bones, pack a doggy bag of your med stuff. I like living. Lieutenants Roy and Uhura and Commander Spock, get your affairs in order, we leave at 1900. Let's go native, folks."


	4. Dark Times

A knocking on her cabin door pulled Nyla from the deep recesses of sleep. She woke with a smile on her face and a contented tune on her lips.

"Come in," she called.

"Oi, lass, I've been messaging you for the past half hour. You're not even dressed!" Scotty glanced down at the bundle in his arms and muttered an, "Oh."

He draped the dress Nyla had requested with the Research and Development team hours earlier. She glanced up at him with newfound energy fueling away through her tank. "Hurry up, then. Roy was still in the shower when I stopped by there and the captain was trying to jam his big foot into a boot."

"I can be ready in five minutes," Nyla assured, patting his hand and dancing in to the bathroom.

The nerves for this mission had been carried away with the sweet clouds of sleep. A thrilling anxiety was left in its place and had Nyla changing so fast she nearly forgot underwear. A few handfuls of bobby pins convinced her voluminous hair to stay in its loose bun, though a few stray curls still escaped and tickled her face. She considered forgoing the glasses, but then decided the heels were risky enough without attempting the feat blind.

Scotty was braced against her doorway when she exited, chatting up Sulu who wandered around in his pajamas of dinosaur pants and a floral top even though he would be Acting Captain in mere minutes. Scotty glanced at his watch, nodding approval. Meanwhile Sulu's jaw dropped much like his ass would at some of the dance parties Nyla hosted in her office when her work hours ended.

"Who the hell did you let in Harlow's room?" Sulu demanded, knowing damn well who those hips belonged to.

"Think I'll blend in?" Nyla gave the men a little spin, though Scotty seemed more interested in a loose screw on his communicator.

"Blending was the goal? You're too gorgeous to do that." Sulu barked at a pair of new recruits who stopped to gawk.

"Not every day I get to break dress code regulations." Nyla smiled, skipping over to kiss his cheek goodbye.

Sulu grumbled something about staying safe and gave her a gentle push towards the impatient engineer. Scotty took her wrist, hauling her down the hallway to the transporter room. Spock and Uhura already waited, standing exceptionally close and speaking so softly Nyla wondered if they were or if they were actually just melding minds. Scotty melted behind his control panel, relaxing once he was surrounded by the familiar hum of machinery and flashing of lights.

"I feel overdressed," Nyla said as she strolled in.

Uhura's dress was slinky but simple and fell over her slim body like a waterfall might caress the rocks below. The silver hue made her skin shine, though maybe it was just the intense overhead lighting that would have them hurtling to the planet below shortly. Spock could have passed for a Knight in his conglomeration of form-fitting armor.

"Well you look underdressed. Where is the rest of that outfit?" Bones' voice pitched up as his eyes made one fell sweep over Nyla's body, settling with burning clarity on her played up eyes. Nyla ran her hands over the silk folds, grasping the metal belt that wrapped around her waist and bouncing up on her toes in amusement at the baffled man. He shifted to readjust his own attire as he joined the landing party in the waiting area.

"I requested it this way. If I'm being forced into the field, I'm making the most of it," she said, giving a twirl for him. A silver collar held the top aloft, matching ornamentation decorating the belt at her waist. The pale purple material fell across her chest, leaving her sides bare to her hips and swooped up to collect between her shoulder blades. The amount of skin exposed was on par with the amount of dress present and Nyla had never felt more like a woman. Her Star Fleet uniform made her feel powerful, accomplished, sure; but this, this was the stuff goddesses strolled through Olympus wearing.

"Ny…Doctor, the amount of injuries you're exposing yourself to is phenomenal. You're like a sheared sheep. Your entire torso is open, Christ." He was jabbering, eyes struggling to stay on her face, obviously mesmerized. His cheeks were rosy, his tongue kept flicking out over his lips, and his hands fidgeted at his sides.

"I don't plan on provoking any violence, do you, Doctor?" Nyla asked sweetly.

"Sheep?" Uhura asked, crossing her arms in amusement.

Before Bones got another flustered word out, Kirk strolled in to join them. "Nice cape Bones. Doctor Harlow, damn. Just damn. That's been hiding under your uniform all this time?" Kirk eyed her appreciatively.

Bones shifted on his feet to block his captain's line of sight and crossed his arms. "You look like a Prince, sir," Nyla replied cheerfully. All eyes on her meant a contented warmth in her veins.

"Damned R&D wouldn't let me request something else." Kirk tugged at his closely tailored vest, his billowy sleeves sweeping vigorously at the motion. His trousers hugged his legs and tucked neatly away into tall black boots. The whole ensemble did truly make him resemble someone who belonged in a storybook gallivanting through a forest on horseback, saving a fair maiden. Speaking of his maiden—Yasmine strutted in next, a powder blue dress swirling around her bronze skin. She was the last to arrive and with their earpieces from engineering.

"I think you look very pretty, Captain," she told Kirk, having caught the tail end of his complaints. She handed each their earpiece and went to go stand by Scotty at the transporter control panel for a few parting words.

Kirk grumbled out a thanks and went to go stand by Bones while Nyla followed Yasmine over to the console. She leaned across the board, chin propped in her hands. "Can I ask you something?"

"I don't do personal outside of your office. Other than that, shoot," Yasmine tapped the screen and waved for Scotty to finish setting their coordinates while she addressed Nyla.

"I just wanted to know if you had any advice for me. You're the best ground operative I've ever observed and I would really like to not fail on my first mission."

Yasmine's mouth quirked up and she too leaned forward, entering Nyla's careful bubble space. "Don't fuck it up." Yasmine patted Nyla's cheek and hiked up her dress to claim the first spot on the transporter pad.

Spock followed after her, offering his arm. "As romantic distraction would be highly probable were I to escort Lieutenant Uhura, perhaps it best we accompany each other," he said.

Kirk shrugged and gestured for Uhura to precede him on walking up the steps. Nyla drew an unsteady breath, convincing herself that this was just another day at work, that this was more of a field trip than a rescue mission, working on her feet instead of a life or death scenario. Bones' elbow drew her back to reality. It was extended in a formal manner, his dark cape adding a dramatic flair to the silk midnight blue shirt and straight legged trousers he wore beneath it. Dark brown eyes stared down at her in assurance. Bones, with a list of fears as long as his list of ready and waiting metaphors, was trying to comfort her. And she gratefully accepted, setting her hand in the crook of her elbow, letting him guide her onto the platform.

The one time she had been beamed onsite was to escort Bones and Nurse Chapel with an emergency medical supply run on a planet that had more mud than medicine. This time, the environment they entered would be hostile and uninviting and the only plan they had was a naive hope that everything would avoid going to hell.

The world vanished, transforming into nothing but a multitude of pixels flashing before her eyes too fast for her to decipher one color from the next. And then she blinked and they were standing in a little alcove outside of a grand ballroom. Low lying palm trees hid their abrupt appearance and nearly tripped Nyla with their roots.

"You remember our tickets?" Kirk asked Yasmine.

"Of course," she grumbled, pulling out the seamless forgeries she and Scotty had spent the better part of the afternoon making.

"I had to remind her," Uhura input.

"Shaddup," Yasmine grumbled. "But, yeah. Thanks."

She gave Spock a jerk, urging their pair to take the lead. Kirk nodded for Nyla and Bones to fall in line next and the captain and Uhura held up the rear. Nyla felt like a kid on her first day of high school. Would all the older, more experienced kids like her? Would she find a date for Prom? Fail that algebra test? Granted, she already had a date for the evening and anything involving numbers too easy for her to bother worrying over. And she was fairly certain her companions would not be giving her wedgies or stealing her lunch money any time soon. So, nothing like high school in reality. Except that every time Bones accidently shifted so that his side bumped into hers, her heart gave a savage kind of jerk, a betrayal to all her earlier denials.

"Like it?" Bones leaned down to whisper far too close to her ear.

"What?" She tensed, just knowing the thundering going on in her chest had given her away.

"The party?" Bones inclined his head inward, brow furrowed at her jumpiness.

Gleaming chandeliers covered every inch of the glass ceiling, interlaced with ribbons that seemed to be made of diamonds. Nyla was pulled through the door almost before Yasmine could get their tickets approved. The Lieutenant grasped her friend's elbow, holding her back to give an alluring smile to the doorman before they were waved through. Nyla thought she might cry or drool or kiss Kirk for dragging her along on this mission. Fearsome were these people, but for every enemy they conquered, they indulged themselves in just as many luxuries. Walls were painted gold, or maybe they were carved from the precious metal, she would not put it past them. The floor swam with lavish marble, the veins of it shimmering as if the walls as melted and now ran through them. Dresses woven straight from silkworms swirled together on the floor creating a dizzying array that reminded Nyla of a hypnotist's wheel. Truly, she was intoxicated on the scene. This humanoid race laughed and danced and sang without a tension to speak of in the air.

Yasmine sniffed and unceremoniously steered Spock over towards the dessert table. No doubt she would employ her rougher technique of enticing information from those who dared venture towards the chocolate cake tonight. Kirk rubbed the back of his neck and nodded towards the dance floor.

Uhura let out a short laugh. "Can't have three left feet between the two of us, sir," she said.

"Oh thank god. We can…uh mingle. These people do mingle, right?" Kirk directed the last question to Nyla who was staring at an emerald gown as if she might snatch it straight off the owner's body.

Bones nudged his partner and she shook herself, blinking free of her fantasies. "Hu?" she murmured, gazing up at him, caught in a whole new trance. Surely it was the setting lending itself to enhance his beauty. He had not always been this striking, she told herself. Or had she just refused to acknowledge it?

"Doctor," Uhura interrupted. "The Captain wishes to know if he can avoid dancing by casually chatting with the natives. Perhaps we might gain the location of the missing Max Whitney if we are very lucky."

"Yeah, sure. They seem tempered enough with good wine in their bellies. Maybe don't try any cheesy jokes," Nyla supplied.

"My jokes aren't cheesy," Kirk complained as Uhura dragged him off into the crowd of people.

"Well, Doctor." Bones fluffed his cape out behind him dramatically as he bowed before her.

Nyla gave her skirts a little twirl in response. "Yes, Doctor?" she asked, unsure which shinned brighter tonight—him or the stars' unforgiving light above.

"Want to do some recon on the dance floor?" he inquired.

"You can dance?" She felt her pulse flutter at the idea of his hand on her waist, of his body so close. God _dammit,_ just because they were off ship did not give her leeway to think of him like that. There was no expressly written rule forbidding coworkers from intermingling physically or emotionally. But Nyla was not willing to risk their immaculate working relationship for childish fancies.

"Name me a proper southern gentleman who can't." Bones held out his hand in an offering. A silent repetition of the coffee question this morning. Had that really been only hours ago?

Being in the center of the action really would help her read these people better. And what better way to accustomed oneself with a culture than by learning their dance? These along with a whole textbook of convincing words ended up with her hand place in his and the both of them being carried out to sea on the waves of the dancers twirling around them. Soon, Bones did place his hand on her waist and it burned like she feared it would and they too were loose in the ocean.

* * *

Yasmine had been a bit miffed when Kirk asked her about the tickets, especially after she was the one to tell him she'd also be stashing a small phaser in the folds of her dress. History favored the prepared and she didn't wanna go down in the books as dead at a ball, even in so fabulous a gown.

The cape swathing down her arms was more regal than anything she'd let touch her body before, even for that one meeting with royal dignitaries. With no tailoring the azure fabric fell past her waist and straight to the floor, skimming lightly at the concoction of shoes she'd been handed. The ensemble was unornamented and just what she was looking for, as she let the bit of sparkle come from pins in her intricate braid.

Spock had surprisingly complied to try an array of the extravagant desserts as the two people-watched from the sidelines, nodding to partygoers here and there as he used the few phrases of the native language Uhura had taught him.

"And so what happens when I'm asked a question?" she whispered to his metal-plated back at a lull in the traffic.

"If you do not wish to speak, simply nod your head. This species is fluent in English but recognizes it as a foreigner's language."

Yasmine then set her face into stone, hoping that it would ward off potential chats as she studied the room for the best place for clues to the missing captain. Instead her gaze fell on her own captain as he and Uhura milled about the room engaged in full conversation with everyone they could find.

She hadn't missed the way his eyes had momentarily blown wide when he first saw her in the dress or the proud smirk when she stuck a toned calf through the small slit to make sure they all whisked inside the ball easily. He made for a lovely prince indeed, golden crown of hair still standing out among the luxury of the crowd, and she had to tear her gaze away from his alluring form. The only thing she did miss was the proximity; it felt a little dangerous to be this far separated from anyone in the landing party with all the potential hostiles strewn between.

All at once her heart gave a hiccup and panic consumed her about some potentially poisonous dessert she'd eaten until she realized the startle came from Spock's elbow neatly knocking into her own.

"Lieutenant, I believe Doctors McCoy and Harlow are trying to obtain our attention."

Sure enough, Nyla was waving as subtly as possibly as she and McCoy maneuvered their way to the sidelines, her face slightly flushed in the wake of an apparently thrilling dance. Uhura had noticed and followed with Kirk in tow, and all at once they had a safe circle again.

"The good doctor and I have diddly squat on this Whitney guy," McCoy grumbled.

"And even in the most casual dialect," Uhura piped up, "it's not the best idea to ask where they keep their prisoners."

Stalemate. The lack of progress had an itch crawling around Yasmine's skin and little sparkling details of the ballroom came into focus as she swept her gaze back and forth, hoping anything helpful could be scraped from the golden walls. When nothing came of it, she gave an indignant flap of her cape.

Keeping his voice decidedly quiet, Spock said, "Captain, our best course of action most likely lies in searching the castle itself uninvited, and that would involve hoping the Drususians wouldn't discover the search party."

Kirk had been glancing around, most likely coming to the same conclusion, and he clapped Spock's shoulder. "Sounds good, Spock, but that should wait until I get a sip of something useful." He made immediate headway for the large bowl of punch in a far corner, a smirk leveled at his favorite lieutenant as he passed.

"God yes count me in!" Nyla followed quickly after him and the Yasmine smiled. The doctor was taking a page from her own first undercover mission, counting on alcohol to take the edge off.

"I'll volunteer for the search party, not all of us should go anyway." Yasmine resolutely tugged a flyaway back into place.

Uhura linked their arms with a warm smile. "I'll join her. Ladies take the east wing."

The pair turned to scope out their best exit from the festivities just in time to see Kirk chug a glass of the green liquid and Nyla bump into someone standing behind her. The doctor whirled around, an apology immediately popping up, and Yasmine tensed as a sweet English, "Sorry! I should've been more careful," escaped her friend's lips.

As soon as a slew of irate faces turned sharply toward her, Nyla was backing toward Kirk, only to find both of them trapped in a circle of the Drususians.

"More Federation spies, no doubt!" the tallest man accused, taking each by the arm.

Yasmine felt Uhura's arm clamp closer, an anchor keeping her weighed down when all she wanted to do was rush over and pull her friends out of the storm. Kirk's face was twisted, angry, holding back fighting words while Nyla was blankly confused, hoping this bad dream could be washed away with a few blinks.

"Sir, I can assure you –" Kirk began, but all diplomacy was smacked away by the hand smartly colliding with his cheek.

A halted lunge brought the phaser at her hip to the forefront of Yasmine's mind. She willed herself not to pull it out but her hand hovered anyway as all sorts of awful possibilities played out in her mind just shy of reality.

"Doctor, I implore you," Spock said tensely to McCoy's muffled protests, "it is unwise for us to aide them now. We must fall back and regroup based on a larger number of rescuees."

Massive, stern guards that had blipped warning red on Yasmine's radar closed in on Kirk and Nyla to haul them away. She felt a brush against her free elbow and turned to see a panicked McCoy trying not to let the pair out of his sight, but embellished doors threatened to obscure them soon.

Nyla looked frantically at her fellow doctor while Kirk fanned his glance over them all at the last second. Oh captain, her captain, Yasmine rarely felt this helpless.

She shook it free, forcing feebleness to the wind as the now foursome backtracked to the castle entrance and out into the hypnotizing night. The clammy air added to the discomfort of strange clothes in a strange land and mixed in with the beads of uneasy sweat collecting on her neck.

"Now we've gone and done it." McCoy still held his voice at a whisper even at their safe distance.

"I have my ear communicator," Uhura blasted straight into solutions, "I'll get us out of here."

Spock shook his head once before pulling himself and Uhura a distance away. "The Lieutenant and I will beam aboard the _Enterprise_ and relay the situation. My human half believes that the captain may be attempting as escape of himself and Doctor Harlow as we speak, and if he is successful it would be for the best for you to be here for his aide."

McCoy was less than impressed and cried out as flashes surrounded the other pair. "Spock, you can't be serious, you can't leave us here!"

And then there were two, and the deafening quiet absorbed them deeper than their elaborate garb already could. There were three moons visible overhead through the palm trees and Yasmine forced herself to count them over and over again until she was more controlled.

"My captain's a prisoner and my commander stranded us for probably the same fate. And I didn't get any damn sleep last night! Just fuckin' great." McCoy was pacing between two trees and quickly dug a groove with his boots that promised to swallow him soon.

"I'm not so keen on it either, Doc, but I'll let ya know if I find some coffee beans," Yasmine droned as she pulled pin after glittering pin from her hair, preparing for what could be a long inactive night. It was a waiting game from the _Enterprise_ and a waiting game from Captive Kirk and Nyla and Yasmine never liked waiting or games. McCoy didn't seem to either.

Suddenly a twig snapped aways off and Yasmine reached for the phaser again. But thundering footsteps soon followed and the doctor's hand was on her elbow, dragging them both away from the onslaught of Drususians.

"Run, Roy!" He bellowed as they crashed through the underbrush and got farther and farther away from the spot that Spock and Uhura had left them, the spot they were supposed to eventually be beamed up from.

They were officially on the run, and officially very on their own.


	5. Prisoner

_Thud._

If Nyla was honest with herself, she would rather go back and drown herself in the punch bowl, or let Sulu loose on her with his saber before spending one more moment locked away in the shared cell.

 _Thud. Thud._

The bars were ancient and flaked away at the edges when her curious fingers brushed them, but they held strong against even her most powerful kick, not that that said much; her strength was on par with that of Kirk on his weakest day. And their imprisonment was her fault without question.

The captain, for his part, appeared to be attempting to breach the stone walls to their back with the mere force of his skull. She and Bones liked to jest that the man had a hard head, but this was no time for him to prove as much. She was not trained in treating concussions. Or the cuts and bruises littering his knuckles for that matter. He looked like someone had set a wild cat loose from his elbows down. All his injuries were self-inflicted, however, earned from his thrashing and catching his extremities against the chinks in their guards' armor.

The guards who dragged them away had not harmed her, their attention focused more on the rampaging Captain. She almost wished they would have so she could have _something_ else to focus on besides the painfully empty dead-end hallway they were unceremoniously deposited in.

 _THUD._

"Stop," Nyla hissed at Kirk.

He did so only out of distraction from his task, not any obedience he would have shown her.

"I warned you not to bring me," Nyla said, seizing his attention while she could. There was a bruise blossoming over one of his temples that almost reminded her of how a flower would look tucked in the sweaty blonde locks.

"I should have gotten us out of there," he said.

"What's going to happen to us?" Nyla whispered, her soft voice resembling a terrible shout in the deafening silence around them.

"No one will hurt you," Kirk swore, making no mention of his own well-being.

Nyla put her back against the bars that might have grown out of the planet itself. They burned against her exposed back, creating fever chills all down her flesh as if they were sitting right on top of a live volcano. Kirk shrugged off his wool jacket and untucked his formal shirt. He might have started pacing if the height of the room allowed it. As it was, even Nyla's petite form could only stand bent over at the waist.

Not a dungeon, a kennel; that is what this reminded her of. They were not people here, but animals who would be locked away for misbehaving. The one light in the corridor only whispered against the darkness, creating dark shadows along the sharp lines of Kirk's face, though the ones under his eyes were more likely due to their night of unrest. A tap against her ear reminded her of their confiscated communicators and she sent up a silent prayer that Yasmine and the others were smart enough not to get backtraced through them. She hoped Bones was safe.

Her bare feet dug into the moist dirt beneath them, kicking it into a little mound. Heels apparently were considered a weapon, so in any case of escape, she would be doing it with the risk of injury from not only their captors, but the environment as well. Earrings, belt, even her ponytail had all been appropriated, the last leaving a wild mane of hair loose for the humidity of the damned tropical planet to play with at will.

"You got a plan, Captain?" Nyla asked.

"Define plan," Kirk muttered.

"Something that won't get either of us killed."

"Then no," he clipped.

Nyla sighed and stretched her legs out to his side, her toes just scraping the opposite wall from her. Kirk groaned and tried to do the same, a whine of complaint rising when his long legs had to jut between the bars just to fully extend.

"Aren't you Drususians supposed to be advanced? You don't even have electricity or cooling down here!" he shouted into the darkness.

"They don't care," Nyla whispered, letting her head roll forward, massaging the back of her neck.

"No shit."

"Don't snap at me! Perhaps they would have been more hospitable if you had not taken down three of their guards," Nyla said.

"You wouldn't even be here if I had not intervened. That officer and his followers looked at you like…like they wanted to separate us. I know those looks, Doctor. They wanted to hurt you in ways that I will never allow."

Nyla glanced up, her throat raw from the water leaking out through her pores. The steely blue eyes of her Captain burned back more fierce than any enemy could ever boast. "How are you?" she asked truly because she refused to linger on his words, on what might have happened if she had braved this alone.

He just groaned and folded his hands in front of his face. "No 'thank you?' I'm peachy, just fucking peachy. Yourself?"

"I take full responsibility for my actions."

"You're no more responsible for this than Yasmine would be for her ear pieces being taken. I should have watched you more closely, tackled you or something. Maybe a muzzle for if we ever get the chance to do this again." He smiled faintly at the thought, nothing more than a twitch of his mouth.

"Yasmine?" Nyla asked, followed his train of thought easily.

"What about her, Doc?" Kirk grumbled.

"How long have you been sleeping with the Lieutenant?" Nyla asked.

"Few months," Kirk answered without a beat. He leaned forward, elbows against his knees. "Since we're asking about personal lives…"

"I have none. But ask if you want." Nyla shrugged.

"Bones," Kirk stated like he was slamming down the trump card.

Nyla's response was so quick, it sounded computer generated, practiced. "He's not personal."

Kirk just raised his eyebrows with amusement. "Looked pretty personal. Or was that another woman in a purple dress with this mess," he mussed her hair, "blushing and dancing with him?"

"He was the one blushing," Nyla retaliated, hitting his pestering hands away and smoothing down her hair to no avail.

"Noticed that, too. Didn't know the man could, to be honest."

"Yasmine was watching you with Uhura the whole evening."

Kirk's chest swelled slightly. "She was not, because she's too damn dedicated to her job. Good try though."

Nyla shrugged and settled her head to rest between two bars, watching Kirk's head lull against his shoulder. Her left leg was plastered to his thanks to the limited space, the body heat mingling to make the already steaming atmosphere practically boil. He watched her through heavy eyelids, blowing dust that swirled in the air from his nose.

"What about you, Harlow? You got any ingenious escape plans brewing?"

"Maybe. Think you can get a guard down here?"

Kirk shrugged, a haphazard jerk of his shoulders. He wrenched off his boot, crawling to lean against the rails.

"I can't complete the plan if I can't breathe," Nyla complained. "Do you ever wash those things?"

Kirk laughed breathlessly and chunked the shoe as far as he could down the hallway. "You'll be thanking me in a minute," he said just as a guard strode angrily forward, Kirk's boot clutched as far away from his armored body as physically possible.

"Who does this belong to!" the guard demanded.

"Apologies," Nyla called, learning her face between the bars so the lamp light cast a shadow of childlike innocence on her face. "My cellmate has a habit of making himself a nuisance to others."

Kirk protested loudly and Nyla waved a hand to silence him, sitting cross-legged from the guard who eyed her warily.

"What's your name?" Nyla asked.

A hand touched the blade secured at his side for reassurance before the guard answered. "Cadet Donar."

"You're quite young to be a cadet, Donar," Nyla noted.

Donar's chest swelled and his head tilted up. "Top of my class, human. And smart enough not to fall prey to your pretty tongue." He began to stride away.

Nyla cursed silently, running her eyes over him again and again searching for something that could aid their escape. A pristine uniform, a faux confident walk, and his hands fisted at his sides, not swinging with his gate. His thumb traced over the ring on his index finger and two more adorning his pinky. One hand meant a marriage, the other meant loss but she could not for the life of her recall which. Nyla cursed under her breath this time, straining her eyes against the gloom to read his face for pain or longing or _anything._ It was too dark, however; she had to guess. She had to get him closer to get her hands on the skeleton key dangling from the back of the same belt that held his sword without getting the sharper object impaled in her chest.

"How old?" Nyla called.

"My age is of no concern to the likes of you!" the guard spat.

"Not you. Your children. Twins? You took this job to provide for them and their mother? You look tired. Do the long hours keep you away from your family?"

Oh, he was back now, grasping her by the collar of her dress so that her head smacked against the ceiling. Nyla heard Kirk mobilize behind her back and subtly warded him off. She could handle this. She could do something without fucking it up. The guard's breath smelled as if he had been chewing coffee grinds for fun and his eyes were bloodshot from too many hours on his feet.

"What do you know of my family? Do your people make threats?" he growled, accent so thick around the foreign English that she had to pause to piece together his words.

"No. No threats. Just a curiosity. If we are to be stuck down here together, then we can at least keep the other entertained." Nyla offered a small smile, praying lightning would not strike her where she stood. When he did not answer, she pushed on. "Do you miss them?"

"What does your kind know of such large emotions? War and wreckage is what humans boast of. We are a civil people," he spat.

"I do not argue civility. Merely an understanding of ways."

"Can I have my shoe back?" Kirk leaned past her to reclaim the footwear and, just as she planned, the guard kept his eyes locked on her all the while.

"You are the first human I have met who did not condemn us," Donar said.

"If you let us go, I would be super grateful," Nyla said, knowing the answer before it even left his tongue.

Donar took a step back, smoothing out his uniform and tilting his head back into its superior angle. "This is your place," he said, striding away.

Nyla sank back to the ground, massaging her collarbones where her dress left angry red brush burns. Before Donar disappeared from view he paused and turned to speak over his shoulder. "I am to change guards. Do still your tongue. The next might not be so forgiving."

"I'll be fucked," Kirk muttered as the guard vanished back into the darkness. His foot had thankfully been shoved back into his boot so the air was slightly more breathable. "He cares what happens to his pets."

"Did you get it?" Nyla whispered, scooting to sit across from his.

Kirk produced the key from his sleeve, grinning deviously. "Change in shift is just the distraction we need. You ready?"

"Sure," Nyla said. "Are you sure we can pull this off, James? There's only two of us against a whole planet and we don't know where the rest of our team is and you're really the only one that can fight and…"

Kirk took her hand between his, curling it into a fist. "Use this if you have to, Harlow. We're gonna get out. Both of us."

Nyla nodded, forcing a shaky puff of air into her body as he turned the lock. The gate creaked down the hallway but not a soul appeared. Kirk took the lead with Nyla following hot on his ass as they made their way back to the stairs they had been escorted down hours earlier. Nyla held the skirt of her dress in one and the other was poised to take down any who opposed them. Dirt caked to the bottom of her feet and the brighter lighting ahead pained her eyes to peer through.

Kirk ducked around the bend leading into the stairwell, cursed and connected his punch with the unguarded face of their new warden. He caught the Drususian before he could clang against the floor, easing his unconscious form to the ground. He claimed his longsword and pointed up and winked at Nyla before beginning their ascent. The exertion was hard on her already panicking heart. She huffed and puffed to keep up with his long, elegant strides and when they reached the top he paused to let them catch their breath.

"Bones would be grouching about the lack of a strategy by now." Kirk smiled faintly, his way of steeling himself against whatever was to come.

"I'm really just trying not to throw up, sir," Nyla admitted. "But I can try for a metaphor if it would help."

"No. Keep close." Kirk surged ahead, he yelped as he encountered the hilt of a sword with his cheekbone and quickly retaliated.

Surprise was their only friend as the three guards positioned at the top of the dungeons reacted to Kirk's appearance. The one who had hit him instinctively went down fast, the slam of the flat of Kirk's blade to his temple effectively silencing him. A second guard fell on him while the third turned her attention to Nyla who hovered in the doorway.

"Woah." Nyla splayed her hands to show herself defenseless.

The guard did not back down, but flung a single dagger at Nyla's face. The drive to survive was what made Nyla duck, no formal training to aid in this fight. "Easy! Easy, we don't want to be here anymore than you want us here!" she called.

"I highly doubt that, human." The sneer made Nyla's skin crawl as she skittered away from the blade pointed at her heart.

"What's your name?" Nyla asked, praying the talking would be enough to distract until Kirk could free himself from his opponent.

The guard smiled sweetly, almost sickeningly at Nyla. "Nothing a woman so near death need concern herself with." She lunged and Nyla dodged the dagger, fist swinging up to meet the face of her attacker. Both cried out as it met its mark—one with shock the other with pain. Nyla wished she was the shocked one instead of the one cradling her throbbing hand. The guard was grinning at her, blood turning her teeth crimson. She spat some of the ground and wiped the rest off with the back of her hand.

"So, the animal does have bite," she sang.

Nyla jumped as the guard slumped forward, nearly impaling herself on her own weapon as Kirk heaved to catch himself against his knees. His face looked like a patchwork quilt for all the cuts and bruises he bore and his knuckles matched the sight. "Good work, Doctor," he panted.

"You didn't tell me it would hurt." Nyla shook out her hand.

Kirk grinned sheepishly, blue eyes alight with their success. He took her elbow and Nyla jogged to follow him down yet another corridor.

Kirk stopped suddenly, causing her to plow into the back of him. "You have feelings for him," he gawked.

"Who?" Nyla was busy nursing a hand that would likely feel the aftershocks of this morning for days to come.

"The other Doctor. Bones."

"Seriously? Can we do this when our lives aren't in danger?" Nyla asked.

"You didn't deny it," Kirk teased, resembling a school child.

Never had Nyla been happier to hear the footsteps on oncoming soldiers. It had Kirk back on track in a heartbeat, pulling her down a desolate hallway so they could disappear into the castle. Now they only had to find their landing party and get their sorry asses off this unforgiving world.

* * *

After a particularly strange dream involving her crew and purple tutus, "Jim" was the first word Yasmine breathed as consciousness roused her.

Unfortunately Kirk wasn't there, and neither was Nyla or any of the other crew that had been dancing so bizarrely in her mind moments before. The gravity of the new world slammed her back into the reality of the dewy ground she was sprawled on and stretching a stiff limb to her left led her to slow-mo punch the doctor where he was slumbering a foot away. Thank god he wasn't awake yet to hear her breathless call for the captain.

They'd run for half the night, scattered with moments of rest and strategizing more zigzags in their escape pattern, until finally they'd definitively lost their pursuers. The small shack she was now waking up in was so overgrown they barely even discovered it was a building, but had quickly crashed in it anyway.

Upon standing up Yasmine stepped forward and straight onto a rotting board that snapped loudly and woke her partner. "Hey!" he slurred before calming down and rubbing a hand over his grimace.

"Hey." More careful steps took her around the circumference of the room and right back to McCoy where she helped him up. "No change in our situation except that I'm fucking starved."

"I don't have my tricorder to tell you what plant life if poisonous or not, so please don't take that chance."

They spent the next few minutes in restless silence, picking at leaves and stickers littering their hair and clothing and having zero luck with the dirt smudging their hands and faces. Each rub and scratch irked Yasmine even more as she thought of the scrapes and blood Kirk was probably dealing with, though who even knew if he and Nyla were alive. Finally her fist slammed against the wall and she shook it free of any splinters.

"This is _not_ how this was supposed to happen." After a frozen moment, she took a deep breath and turned around. "But I'm…I shouldn't have done that. We need to keep our heads screwed on straight for Jim and Nyla."

"It's alright, you just beat me to it." Maybe McCoy should be a psychologist, too, because for once he put on a knowing smile and spun to more lighthearted conversation. "Now that we're all manners of stranded together, Lieutenant Roy, how about a little get to know me? You got a first name?"

He was right, and she leaned haphazardly against a windowsill as she eased out of tenseness. "Yasmine, and I don't mind any way you wanna shorten in. Yaz, Yazzie, my mom even calls me Minnie. But don't pass that last one along to J—the captain, 'cause he'll never let it go and it's not my favorite."

"Well I'm Leonard, though Jim calls me –"

"Bones," she finished, but at his peculiar gaze she added, "I hear it a lot from him."

He let whatever questions he had slide, and instead gestured toward the rickety door and the sunlight gleaming beyond. "I know for a fact it won't do any good for us to sit here, so let's venture out a bit, Yasmine."

She made a quick spin around the room out of habit, laughably looking for anything she might be leaving behind, yet that spin of her dress caught her peripheral vision and she suddenly noted how the pale fabric was blinding against the muted foliage surrounding them.

"Give me one second before we go, Doc." She had pulled herself free of the cape and both sleeves before he realized what she was doing.

He swiveled away instantly, eyes vehemently covered. "Whoa, hey, has nobody taught you to give a guy warning before all that?"

"You can still look, I promise it's not a big deal," she placated as she shimmied more of the dress off.

"Maybe not to you, but my mother raised me better and would have my head if she found out I didn't give you due decency."

"That's not what this is." With no answer, his stubbornness was starting to irritate her. She paused all yanking at the gown and said, "Doctor, I'm ordering you to turn around and look at me."

"You're trying to pull rank you don't have, Roy."

"Bones, you've gotta have a little faith in me!"

He slowly turned around, eyes still covered. "I'd be happier if you tossed me a hornets' nest, but alright dammit. You win, but I better not hear an HR complaint about this."

Yasmine stood there, dress pooling at her ankles like a small pond and otherwise clothed in the black engineer's jumpsuit she often worked in, sans any Starfleet markings of course. She pulled the pants legs down from their hiked position away from the slit in the dress, McCoy gaping all the while.

"You don't lead a blind man to a cliff without telling him the good news, dammit! You coulda told me you weren't gonna be buck naked in front of me."

She shrugged, reveling in the freedom of the jumpsuit and the few degrees cooler without so many layers. "I had to get out of the loud dress, and we got a little trust exercise out of it. You and your cape can lead the way now, Bones."

His grumbling forged their first steps back into the jungle. "Yeah, now I'm the only one looking damn ridiculous in a cape."

"I'm sure Jim and Nyla won't mind. Max Whitney probably won't either."

The ground was soggy and overgrown with some kind of mildew, which thankfully muffled their steps. After finding a pace dodging back and forth between low-lying branches and traipsing in a direction that neither of them knew to be correct or otherwise, Yasmine began her favorite practice of talking herself through things.

"Now, assuming Jim hasn't busted them out or gotten them exiled already, we've gotta get back to the castle."

McCoy's voice still had all its crystal clear gruffness behind her. "Now I'm gonna try not to age myself with this, but isn't 'Jim' a little informal for your captain? I know we're in a landing party and all but –"

"No, you're right. It's probably rude of me," Yasmine said bluntly. It was hard keeping herself in check to think of Jim as only her captain when concern and longing for him constantly buzzed under her skin, yet she'd brushed it off before and could do it again. "But before we see the castle and the _captain_ , Bones, we'll find smaller towns first. Keep your eyes peeled for humanoids."

The jungle dawn was laced with heavy humidity that hadn't dissipated at all from the night before and kept reappearing in layers around each massive tree, though it did nothing to help Yasmine's parched throat. Each of those monotonous trees in turn held out unwelcoming branches to tear at hair and clothes as they trudged onward, simple blips of distractions that hardly bothered their determined pace. Roy and McCoy weren't gonna be stopped.

Until Yasmine noticed a few strands of her own hair on a tree they were apparently passing again.

"Well shit, I think we're going in circles."

McCoy's reply caught in his throat, coming out as no more than a ribbit as he yanked her back against a trunk. She almost cried out in frustration and discomfort as the bark dug into her back, but trusted his judgement and watched as he silently motioned toward a Drususian in the distance.

The humanoid was alone, clad in simple but bright robes and bent over to inspect what was probably a vegetable garden. Yasmine ran through the limited list of options in her head and skidded to a stop on the last one. Retrieving the phaser still stashed deep in one of her jumpsuit's back pockets, she brandished it and hadn't managed a step forward before the doctor grabbed hold of her again.

"Good god, woman! A phaser with you?" His tense voice was barely audible as he rambled on. "Actually, you know what, not good god. Because in the good god's story the animals go two by two together to the same place, not get separated in twos!"

Yasmine rolled her eyes and whispered, "Trust exercise part two," before creeping forward to close enough range to fire at the Drususian. His form crumpled and when no other signs of alarm surfaced, the pair closed in.

"Is he…?"

"What do you think of me, Doc?" She let out a full laugh at his baffled expression. "Phasers always set to stun."

He laughed, too, though his echoed with the unnerving strain of delirium, and when he didn't stop she finally asked what was so funny.

"That's exactly what Jim muttered when I found the son of a bitch asleep a couple days ago, it was the funniest thing. He wasn't even in his quarters, either, I found him in some random room. I'll have to remember where it was and get a video of him sometime for blackmail purposes."

Yasmine felt it bubbling up but recognized it way too late.

"Room 4112?"

In the blessed second before his reaction she was sure she'd escaped all detection. But no, this day apparently didn't have enough complications as it was.

"Now wait a damn second." All of McCoy's other attentions came to a full displeased stop, the unconscious body between them holding a silent audience to the shit about to hit the leaves on all sides. "He looks at your ass more often than he should, you call him Jim, and you know the room I found him stark naked in? You've gotta be fuckin' kidding me."

She managed to square her shoulders and meet his eyes, only delaying the inevitable for a moment.

"You've been sleeping with the captain! Not even a one night stand, but current and ongoing!"

There it was. She'd been expecting that first phrase for months now and so resorted to brushing it away as per usual. "As ongoing as the rescue mission, McCoy, so can we focus on that?"

"Oh no you don't." He wagged a finger and bit back a smile, too caught up between agony and delight to let it go. "You've deprived me of giving him shit for this for months, so I'll start with you. I couldn't give a rat's ass about who's rolling around with who onboard, but with the _captain_? Or apparently it's Jim now?"

Her mind was lagging on how to respond but she managed to nod at a steady pace. The blush on her cheeks was a foreign sensation as she was brought back to grade school days of being called out on a crush, though it now involved much more than a secret kiss at recess.

At her hesitation he added, "And how the hell did this start? Romantic dates by the warp core?"

All at once her fingers expertly locked the phaser's safety and twirled it in her hands. If she couldn't feel in control at least she could look the part. After all, she was fully proud of Jim as a lay. "It's not nearly that formal, Bones. We're all adults, and some of us find relaxation in more creative ways than others."

It was her turn to be brash about it and it had the desired effect. McCoy wrinkled his nose and said, "Don't you dare give me details."

"Like how the first time he –"

"Roy!" he warned again. "I'll have to sit in Dr. Harlow's office for years if you tell me anything. I'm regretting the knowledge in the first place. Jim's so damn proud of anything he won't even be bothered."

"I think you wanna be with Nyla anyway, Mr. Southern Charm."

He turned swiftly on his heel, cape flinging indignantly. "Cut it, Yaz. Now do you wanna tell me why you felt the need to stun this guy in the first place?"

Yasmine basked in her success and gladly obliged. "If he saw us he could put out an alarm for our descriptions, and I'm hoping that path of broken branches will lead us back to the town he came from."

She swung a slender arm toward their new makeshift path forged by the Drususian's levitating vegetable cart he'd been dragging and she wordlessly led the way. McCoy huffed and gruffed his way behind her muttering about indecency and how "the corneater just can't help himself".

There was a tinge of relief gracing Yasmine's small smile. Someone else knowing made it more real, and maybe that wasn't a bad thing. The cavern being scratched into her chest with each passing minute of not being sure of Jim's safety spoke of feelings she'd sworn both of them against. Feelings that nearly tripped her when she realized what she was admitting to herself.

But work was work and sex was sex and that's the way it should stay.

The pair followed the green broken road in an erratic pattern to other little gardens, interrupted only by strange bird calls and the occasional slick patch of mud. McCoy's stomach grumbled just as the forest ended and opened up into a quaint little village, leaving Yasmine slackjawed that they'd stupidly been so close.

"I hope you know by now that I have high moral standards, Yasmine," McCoy muttered as they let the few sparse branches remaining cloak them from the townspeople, "but if I see food that looks like it won't kill me…"

"Roger that. Nobody has to know."

He of all people would know that hungry individuals were not effective ones, and so after creeping from one sloping brown house to the next few they found a bustling market with a fruit stand.

"Having seen you swipe dessert off Sulu with my own two eyes, I'm volunteering you for this," he said with a supportive nudge to the ribs.

Yasmine scoffed but slinked around back of the market and when a squabble between two merchants presented itself as an ample distraction, she pilfered as many little multicolored fruits as would fit in her hands. Her careful steps turned into a proud saunter when she got close to McCoy again and she handed him half of the spoils.

Her first bite of a brilliant teal fruit was delightfully tangy and she absentmindedly juggled the other produce around as they finally got to savor food.

"Are you this handsy with everything you unethically want?" The knowing smirk twisting McCoy's lips made her nearly choke on the piece in her throat.

"Shove it up there, Bones."

"You're far from out of the woods on this, Yaz, but I will let ya know I found the castle." He chuckled while his hands gripped her shoulders to spin her around and point above the village's taller buildings.

The gleaming white spires couldn't be more than a mile away and looked even more regal in the daylight. It was truly a gorgeous spectacle to behold, but the way it held Jim and Nyla dangerously captive made it sinister in a way that twisted Yasmine's gut all over again.

A commotion in the market spurred the pair to make headway toward the castle and as soon as they'd reached the outskirts again McCoy took the lead, his purposeful steps holding more of a bounce than Yasmine had seen before. They were back in the forest but had an optimistic eye out for the tallest castle towers, the tips calling them closer and closer back to where they'd been driven away from hours before.

"I think I can get us back to the spot we're supposed to be beamed from." McCoy's dark hair had long been spiking in every direction and it only swiveled slightly to toss the words back to Yasmine.

"And then it shouldn't be too hard to make it back to the castle from there!"

He slammed to a stop first and Yasmine could remember running into a brick wall that felt the same. "The hell are you talking about, going back to the castle?"

"Doc…" And then the idea struck her. "Of course, Doctor! I'll be sick or beat up or something and you'll be my doctor. That's how we'll get in."

"Now wait a damn second. I believe you've lost all your marbles, Roy. You actually think we should go in there without backup?!" He fervently threw an arm toward the castle and looked at her like she was growing a green tail.

"Backup is gonna take a long time and two people can be much stealthier than twenty. We want Jim and Nyla out of there as soon as possible, right? Who knows what –"

"Alright, alright," he cut her off and wiped a resigned hand down his face. "You're right. But you best believe I'm quitting undercover work as soon as this is over."

A proud smirk crossed her lips and she clapped him on the shoulder. "But at least you get to work with me first, hm?"

"Jim's crazy has been rubbing off on you," he grumbled.

For the first time since they'd beamed onto Drusus, Yasmine could truly breathe as the fog clouding her mind cleared a bit and she fell straight back into her element. Planning on the go was one of her fortes and so as the castle slid closer so did the exact details of their strategy. Dirtying up their clothes once again was the easiest part. The script definitely wasn't.

"…and so as long as they think we randomly crash-landed," McCoy clarified for the second time, "I can speak English and they won't toss us in a dungeon after two words?"

"I really hope so. If you've brushed up on your acting skills recently we should be fine." Yet in the folds of her jumpsuit Yasmine could only cross her fingers and pray.

The castle gates finally came into view and their steps slowed ever so slightly as the camouflage would soon end and the real work would begin. But she didn't feel prepared quite yet. Their ruse would have to be spotless if it was gonna work at all, and she had joined Starfleet and avoided all theatre and art classes for a reason.

"Now Bones." Her next question wasn't gonna go over well and she braced as well as she could. "I'm supposed to be so hurt that they get us to the best doctors and right now I only look a little scuffed up. I'm gonna need you to punch me."

This time she was able to swerve around his screeching halt and run around to face him, only to cringe at the indignant horror etched into his expression.

"You want me to _what_? For fuck's sake, you already stripped like a madwoman in front of me and now you expect me to hit you, too? Have you not heard that I'm the proper son of a bitch from Georgia?!"

"You're a proper doctor, too! You're the best one to know where to hit me and it not do too much damage." Yasmine wasn't accustomed to using pleading faces but she tried her best. "The sooner you do this the sooner we get to Nyla, Doc."

He scoffed. "Why the hell are you trying to use that on me? You bargain worse than Jim."

But she could tell she struck a nerve. If she played her cards right… "You think you're slick? All due respect but you were grossly smitten last night, Jesus Christ. At least I was able to hide my thing for Jim from you."

A wry grin sprang on his mouth. "And here I was thinking you only had a thing _with_ him? You don't tell the jury your secrets before the verdict, Yaz."

Yasmine's breath caught a hook in her throat and she dangled like a fish above water. But she had the talent to deflect from even herself and her mind immediately flew to Nyla and how the psychologist would have a field day with her little Freudian slip. A sharp cough and expectant gaze from the man in front of her dragged her back and all at once she was fed up with the quarreling lest he pick apart any more of her arguments.

"Doctor. Either hit me once or I'll find a tree branch to make myself more convincingly hurt."

He huffed a sigh that seemed to come all the way from his feet. "I'm locking you in medbay for a week after this."

He took the initiative and manhandled her head to the proper angle before taking a moment to loosen up his hand. His few practice swings touched lightly against her left cheekbone and then he told her to hold still and clench her jaw. The punch itself was still reining in all sorts of strength, but it did the trick. It stung, then it throbbed, and a welt raised slightly under her bronze skin.

"You happy?"

"Was that so hard?"

"Grandma McCoy is somehow gonna find out about this and I'll have to go into goddamn witness protection," he clipped.

She shook her head free of a bit more of the smarting pain. "If it gets that far I'll personally come bail you out."

"Somehow I think you're only as helpful as Jim in a courtroom."

"Try me someday," she offered, then pulled one last rip into the shoulder of her jumpsuit. "Alright, enough filibustering, Bones. I'm ready to play unconscious."

He caught her where she leaned and easily hoisted her up, still giving instructions. "Move that arm over there. No, make your left leg completely limp, I don't care if it swings. Labored breathing will help you seem in worse shape."

Yasmine felt like she was gonna need a real trip to the medbay soon with the unnatural breathing and limbs already cramping but she stuck it out, eyes fluttered shut and waiting in the blind for the steady swaying of McCoy walking to bring them to the castle gates. Her only bit of warning came as his mutter to her under his breath. "Here's hoping, Roy."

His voice then boomed louder as footsteps approached them. "Help! Please, you have to help. We crashed in your woods and this woman is in bad condition. I'm her doctor but your supplies and expertise may be the only thing that can save her."

There was a pause and faint whispering in the native tongue, then an accented voice gruffly said, "Agreed. But only expect base help, stranger."

Yasmine let a slit of her eye open when a shadow fell across her face, enough to see the wrought metal gates getting smaller behind them.

They were in.


	6. Losers

**THANK YOU GUYS for your continued patience and passion for this story! Real life can sometimes get in the way but there's no way I'm done updating this. Hope y'all love it!**

The Drususian medical ward was one of the ugliest sights Yasmine had ever beheld, and she'd seen the tail end of some nasty creatures on other away missions. Apparently the subtle differences between Earth humans and these humanoids included different views on pleasing aesthetics.

Strange olive green designs were woven into the walls with burnt orange décor crawling out every few feet while everything else was the typical starch white of a hospital. It was deathly silent as each hospital bed was in its own translucent cubicle, save for McCoy's occasional impatient tapping against the steel chair where he was sprawled.

Yasmine was upright in her bed, an ice pack to her forehead and bandages holding the rest of her apparent cuts together, and even her jumpsuit had been sewn up and given back. Faint throbbing at her cheek threatened to lure in a headache but she kept it at bay by scheming instead.

"Do none of these bastards ever give it a rest? An hour and we still haven't caught more than a few seconds' break." McCoy's gruffness echoed along the four walls and back to rest against his pouting lips.

Yasmine watched the blurred figures beyond their cubicle shuffle around, still blocking their escape. "You said the door out of the ward was how far away?"

"Few yards. A few running steps will get us there."

"And then running till we're done with the rescue, Bones."

He shook his head. "I'll be sure to log both of us as plenty of exercise done for the week."

Yasmine was preparing herself to wait much longer than would keep her sane when suddenly a clatter down the hall called all attending physicians to the cubicle farthest from the exit door. She sprang up and rid herself of the torrent of sheets and McCoy kept in time with his reaction, making sure she wouldn't faint on them before they dashed for the escape.

The sterilized air stung with some kind of peroxide but it just spurred their steps all the faster and McCoy ushered her through first, not able to drop the proper gentleman act for a millisecond. He was still drenched in his cape and so blended into the Drususian surroundings fairly well, leaving Yasmine to fend for herself should they be caught.

"Alright Yaz," he tensely whispered as they crept as quickly as possible through the blessedly empty corridors, "I'm about as educated on the castle layout as a hornet is with the ocean, but my guess is that the dungeons are basement level."

"That's a strange way to ask to go down on a girl, Doc." She couldn't resist and smirked proudly as he choked on an indignant retort. "Did that line work on Nyla?"

"I might throw you in a cell myself, Roy."

Armored clattering from a few corners away suffocated any more of their repartee and instead drove them up the nearest flight of stairs. They nearly tumbled back down another one and kept up the frantic scurrying to avoid the patches of humanoid soldiers, and just as a roar of voices echoed through the stone walls Yasmine rounded a corner and slammed into a molding grate. She rubbed away what was sure to be a conspicuous bruise on her shoulder as McCoy pulled open the grate and they darted down the steps into the seedy darkness.

It was a stereotypical revolting dungeon with questionable dripping sounds and little squeaks here and there from unseen rats, but the pair barged onward toward the groupings of cages as they became visible in the dim lighting. Yasmine's hurried steps in the grime made her slip a few times and she was going to make a joke about it when they reached the end of the hall and found no trace of their comrades except a cell with the door slightly ajar.

"Goddammit, I'm gonna wring his neck when we're safe again," McCoy deadpanned, kicking the door shut.

Yasmine let herself swell with pride knowing that they had indeed escaped, that Jim's fighting spirit had yet to fail him and that meant Nyla had made it out, too. Though she quickly deflated and glared at the empty cage when her shoes squished into more filth.

"Well they got out and now we're the ones down here. And finding them outside the castle is gonna be –"

"I've always hated needles in haystacks," McCoy finished.

After a few cleared throats and adjusted clothes, they easily slid back into the routine of a rescue mission with the doctor leading the way. Yasmine matched his powerful stride until once again he apparently decided an abrupt stop was the best way to get her attention.

"Can you see that, Roy?"

Once she detangled herself from his cape her gaze followed his gesture down a smaller unlit corridor neither had noticed before. But with her eyes now accustomed to the darkness she could make out a figure clad in a tattered but striking golden shirt and slumped in one corner of his cage.

"Jim!" She dared to confine her cry to a whisper as she dashed down the hall while the knots twisting in her gut threatened to rip out altogether.

But as she neared the cage it became very clear that this wasn't Kirk. The crew-cut hair was too dark and this man was fast asleep with snores escaping now and again. McCoy was right behind her and scoffed when he came to the same conclusion, though she could feel the relief radiating off of him to match hers.

"Well Doc, looks like we get to rescue someone anyway." Yasmine shook a loose bar on the cage and the clanging was enough to wake the man. "Captain Whitney?"

He bolted upright and a string of curses followed as his head collided with the top. Taking one look at the pair, he shrugged and ran a hand over a healing bruise on his jaw. "Well you guys look a little different. Are you the food crew? Cleanup? Thank god your friends let me out to shit but I'm starved now. If you've got anything like hashbrowns I'll take 'em all."

McCoy managed to pick up his jaw from the floor before it became too rude and he shot Yasmine a bewildered look she'd only seen when new alien strains of the flu ended up in his reports.

"Captain Whitney? I'm Doctor McCoy of the U.S.S. _Enterprise_ ," he began but hushed his voice when the clacking of boots echoed toward them.

Yasmine automatically backed herself to the wall, barely registering the dampness seeping into her jumpsuit, and as soon as the guard came around the corner she swung as hard as she could at his face. The Drususian crumpled and she glided over him to retrieve the key ring that had rattled to the side.

Before even looking up the meet the eyes of the two men she was saying, "Talking wasn't gonna work, and yes my hand's fine."

Whitney shrugged. "Ok, the hot one's a badass. I'm listening."

"We're rescuing you, in case you haven't noticed." McCoy stood to oversee the operation of opening the cage, though his face read as possibly wanting to leave the captain where he was.

"And you're with the _Enterprise_ , did you say? Doesn't Starfleet usually spare its favorite from making rescue missions?"

"Actually, if you looked at our records you'd see that we've been a part of nearly every major rescue in the past year but, ahem, that's beside the point." He continued his rebuttal with, "Our friends tried to rescue you first but apparently busted out in a hurry so we're here to try again."

Whitney snorted as he stretched his long-confined muscles. "Is that what all that ridiculous racket was about? If they were gonna pass me by they could've at least done it quietly. I was tryna sleep."

All voices were still tense whispers but Yasmine was sure someone had heard the clanking around thus far and so hooked a steadying arm around Whitney and began marching them out. "Let's worry about that later, sleeping beauty sir."

Of course the blessed silence didn't last long before Whitney was yammering again. "A captain, a doctor, and a…what're you? And did you run your name by me yet?"

"Lieutenant Yasmine Roy, systems engineer."

"And an engineer walk out of a dungeon," he finished while peeling himself free of her arm. "And I can walk on my own, Lieutenant."

McCoy piped up over his echoing steps with, "That's great, can you walk us an easy way out of here?"

"Yeah, I've probably been walked around enough."

The captain stepped past Yasmine to survey the hall and stairs leading to the main floors, leaving her to share a look with longsuffering McCoy. The sogginess of the dungeon was starting to really clog their breathing and for once she mirrored his stance of arms folded ironclad over her chest.

"Nobody told us we were rescuing a grade-A jackass," he quipped, only half trying to hide it.

"Duty calls, Doc."

Whitney suddenly broke into a run and they bounded up the steps after him, their hoarse calls frantically echoing after him. He wound them this way and that through the castle, some of it familiar to Yasmine but some of it terrifyingly not. At that rate she was convinced they'd all get caught and then how were they supposed to get out of square one again?

All at once the trio reached a decaying wooden door hanging half open with sunlight streaming in from outside. Bursting through it they squinted at the sudden brightness, but McCoy simply flung his cape on top of his head and charged to the front to lead the run.

"Not gonna be found sunbathing on my watch," he muttered as he passed.

Yasmine broke into a smile, thrilled to be running on flat ground again even if it involved weaving back and forth around trees while following a grumpy bear and an eager beaver. She gave quick thanks to the alien god that let them escape the castle seemingly undetected just as their sprinting slowed to a jog and then to a brisk walk.

"I'm assuming your pals also used the exit door that we did," Whitney mused.

When he added no other helpful comments, Yasmine said, "We're walking away from the castle, sir, that's our best bet to meet up with them for now."

"I've half a mind to yell for them," McCoy swatted at a buzzing wad of gnats that were drawn to the sheen of sweat on his forehead, "but I have a feeling all we can wait for is some fairytale sighting across a meadow."

Swatting and musing and trudging they went, breaking through the brush no more delicately than elephants and just about ready to trample any Drususian who tried bothering them now. The stakes were high and the morale was slowly being dragged up with it and Yasmine soon found herself traipsing at the front beside McCoy, though never forgetting the castle and miscreant behind them.

Unfortunately all the greenery still looked the same, so try as she might she couldn't pinpoint anything familiar to help guide them. The forest opened and closed with a few clearings, not that those made the plush vines matted with thorns any easier to walk over. Yasmine paced them the fastest but apparently the captain hadn't been on any dangerous away missions recently.

"There's not anyone chasing us at this exact second," Whitney panted, "so would you mind if we didn't run like fuckin' maniacs on our way to Taco Tuesday?"

"Thinkin' about food ain't gonna get us anywhere, captain," McCoy brushed him off easily and left it at that.

But the captain's panting simply escalated to heavy wheezing and Yasmine was debating whether to snap at him or actually check if he was alright when McCoy let out a tense cry.

"Well I'll be damned like a drunk on Sunday mornin'!"

Yasmine laughed as she marched onward from where he was frozen. "What'd you step in?"

"Nyla! Jim!" he cried again, breaking into a jog to the hard left while Yasmine swiveled sharply and stared after him, praying he wasn't falling captive to a jungle mirage.

Lo and behold the doctor hadn't lost his mind because just beyond a tall cluster of palm trees stood Jim and Nyla. Yasmine found herself only able to walk toward the pair for fear of them disappearing but she got closer and found that they were absolutely real, so real that she could see the joyous tears sparkling in Nyla's eyes until McCoy eclipsed her from view with an embrace.

And then there was Jim. Proud, defiant Jim whose face held a smirk that she'd seen countless times before and leaving her heart to nearly stop when she took in the rest of him. Golden tendrils swept this way and that and there were patches of dried blood on his lips to match the red stains on his scratched knuckles. There was a ferocity still clinging to him, a beautiful restless glow that would never leave a fight unfinished and that she found herself so infatuated with. He was panting a little bit, still coming down off the high of being on the offense but then again he was always there, always ahead of the circumstances with a spark that wouldn't be pushed away, and that spark glinted in his eye as they wordlessly came face to face.

The burning and bursting in her chest couldn't be a normal feeling.

Finally he lurched forward and grabbed her into a hug that she sagged into, neither of them releasing as time for a normal hug ticked down and then vanished altogether.

Reluctantly Yasmine pulled her arms away first, though still standing just as close. She cleared her throat and said, "We went back for you, you know. And you had the audacity to not be in the dungeon anymore."

"Guess I'll try to stay locked away next time." His small smile wasn't fazed and made her contagiously break into one of her own.

* * *

Nyla was so lost in simple fact that she was losing her goddamn mind that she missed the few long strides it took the supposed figment of her imagination to cross the space between them and fold her against his body with all the force of a man dying of dehydration discovering an endless well of water. The hug stole her breath faster than any space vacuum could and had her clinging to the fitted fabric of the real life Leonard McCoy's shirt. The sharp wind whipped at his back, billowing his cape around them like a curtain, offering a moment of solitude from the rest of the planet. Just his heart thudding precarious fast against her ear, his hands sure as an artist's, locked behind her back with no key in sight.

"Where the hell have you been?" Bones grumbled into her hair. His gruff voice tumbled over her, scraping away the layers of filth from the prison cell, wiping the sweat from her brow and erasing the newly formed scars in her mind. When he looked at her not a damn other thing in all the galaxies mattered. He smelled of dirt and sweat, things her nose had never associated with the immaculately groomed doctor before. Now, she buried herself in the scent, relishing the simple fact that they were both still physically and mentally intact.

"James and I were just getting the full tour, which unfortunately included chains and these really weird finger foods, but not in a kinky way. Our job is exploration, right? Does that not extend to the dungeons?" she attempted to put her usual whimsical purr behind the words, but they just came out leaded with the weight of what she and Kirk had endured.

"Where are your goddamn shoes?" Bones demanded.

"With the goddamn Drususians," Nyla responded, prying a smile from the reluctant recesses of his soul. "Where's Uhura and Spock?" she retorted.

"Beamed back up for help. Don't have the faintest what's taking them as long as sloths in molasses to get back," Bones said.

She waved her hands as if to chase away the sentiment and he caught the still throbbing appendage. The wind puttered to a standstill, gravity dragging his cloak back around his ankles and leaving the moment raw and open for all to see, but Bones was unrelenting in his touch, in his concerned gaze. Surely he did not look at all his patients like that. "What did you do? Smack Jim's anvil of a hard head?" He turned over her hand, surgically cool fingers chasing away the heat from the forest encasing them on all sides.

Kirk opened his mouth to protest but Yasmine just swatted his side as he released her from their own hug. "Don't even try and fight that one, Captain," she said.

"I was going to say she nailed one of our guards with that hand. It was so gorgeous. You guys really missed out," Kirk said.

"Sexy," Yasmine approved with a nod.

"Hurts," Nyla responded, whining when Bones tested her range of motion. He began with gently twisting her wrist up, then down, drawing a hiss when he gently curled her fingers. "It's probably broken. Do you think we have to amputate it?" Nyla pouted

Bones shook his head, laugh dancing through the trees. The crinkle around the edges of his eyes chased away any lingering pain more effectively than any drug he could have administered. "Not even a sprain. You threw a punch Muhammad Ali would have been proud of. You'll survive I think." His hands raised to brush the angry red marks around the collar of her dress. "Goddamn Drususians," he spat.

Nyla was too busy fighting off the feverish tingles his touch created to hear when their extra companion finally spoke up. "I didn't know Star Fleet started hiring a runway team instead of an actual crew. Does she actually have a job?" He eyed Nyla with his lips twisting as much as his muck covered hands. He spun to Kirk glancing him up and down half-amused, half-patronizing. "You're the Captain?"

Kirk took a second to coax the frown from his lips before jutting out his hand, eyes fixed well above the misrepresented golden hue of the new addition's shirt. "That was Doctor Nyla Harlow, an upstanding member of my crew, and you will address her and everyone else present with respect. James T. Kirk. You must be Captain Whitney."

"Could get your own skinny ass outta that shithole, but didn't have time for little old me?" Whitney demanded.

"Apologies. We would have gone back if we had known. And if it didn't risk dirtying our top of the line clothes," Kirk said with his smile in place all the while.

"Alright, alight," Bones interjected before either man could lunge for the other's throat. "Enough flirting. Let me see those cuts, Jim."

Bones steered Kirk far enough away from the others so there was no longer a risk of testosterone overload. Yasmine kept Whitney talking, strategically occupying the man's repulsive gaze and tongue away from Nyla.

"You should have left him," Kirk muttered under his breath, whining when Bones sprayed a quick antiseptic solution on the scratch on his cheek.

A check of the eyebrow was all the doctor offered in response.

"I know, I know. Regulations, human decency, whatever. Can we sedate him? Is that an option?"

"You want risk not having that should we need it later? I've only got so much in this kit."

"I don't plan on letting the Drususians have another advantage. I know Harlow sure as hell doesn't." With a swipe of his tongue between his parched lips, Kirk leveled tantalizing blue eyes at his dark haired friend. "You were sure glad to see her."

"Dammit man, my grandma used to preach to me about that splinter in someone else's eye versus the log in your own!"

"I think that was more of a confirmation than you intended, eh Bones?" The harsh swipe of a sterile gauze over Kirk's wounds was not enough to derail the focused man. "We had a lot of bonding time in that cell, Doctor Harlow and I. She told me everything."

"Hard, considering there's nothing to tell you nosy bastard." A nod of approval at his completed inspection sent Bones packing up all his supplies again. "And while we're on the subject that you opened up, there's a nice little alcove a ways back into the trees if you and Lieutenant Roy were feeling the urge to shack up again."

The air rushed out of Kirk's open mouth, but before he could get out a retort Bones continued on. "Lord give me strength, Jim, the bunnies would be jealous of the way you hop from bed to bed."

"Oh, cut me a break. I'm not doing that. There's not that many beds to...hop to. That metaphor sucked. But it's just been the one bed."

"Oh I know damn well which bed, Jim. You're being safe, right? Because I stopped screening you when you told me you were inactive on that playing field."

"You really should have known better to be honest."

Kirk laughed as Bones shoved his shoulder and the older man let a reluctant smile grace his shadowed lips.

"I like the scruff, by the way. You look like a real jungle man," Kirk added.

"I haven't even seen a razor since we left and…hell and damnation, you're not getting off that easy."

Kirk opened his mouth and Bones jumped to cut him off. "Don't say a damned thing about how you actually get off. I mean it Jim!"

Bones called this as Kirk got back to his feet, brandishing his new bandages like badges of honor while he strolled back over to Nyla, dragging Bones' gaze along with him, assessing her body in the most professional way.

A bird screeched in the background, warning of the impending sunset and their need for some form of shelter. Nyla wiped her hands against her grimy dress and nudged Kirk as he came to a stop beside her. The sun was being pulled to the horizon faster than a plan could be formulated. Eventually, the crew decided to head towards the outskirts of the city, voting for that the less Drususian encounters the better even if it meant a lower possibility of finding a place to squat in. Their traveling party fell into a simple train with Kirk taking the lead as their working conductor and Yasmine keeping an easy pace next to him. Max Whitney followed a little too close to their asses for Bones' liking and he voice as much under his breath.

"Easy there, Southern Belle," Nyla teased.

He prompted her around a particularly gnarly tree root, hand remaining between her shoulder blades long after the threat to her bare toes. And his eyes remained fixed on her instead of the road ahead. "That dress looks like it's been run through one too many wood chippers," he said.

"Just one, I think. And I liked it a lot better before a swarm of mosquitoes took up residency somewhere between my boobs." Nyla picked at the stained fabric, sneaking a peak beneath just in case she was not merely exaggerating.

"It's not that humid."

"I'm sorry, what was that, Georgia?"

"Get more original jokes, Ny."

Her head craned back to peer at him. The fading sunlight hit him from behind, capturing his own light sparking behind dark tone of his eyes. Irritable, wonderful Bones who did not even realize the emptiness his simple presence filled. Brown hair twisted to and fro and stretched down to cover his chin as well. A yearning for sleep dragged his steps but did not quite reach the hope still burning like a fever in his grimly set mouth. Despite the isolation, the hostile planet bearing down on them, and the blisters those dress boots were undoubtedly giving him, the man refused to do anything else but face it head on, complaints aside.

"Well, fuck me," Max Whitney voiced as the flat rooftop of a neglected little shack through the foliage.

It was the most pitiful little building, about the size of one living quarter back aboard the _Enterprise._ Once it must have boasted a proud red color to stand out from the living forest, but now the paint was so eroded it looked like the walls were leaking blood that the parched dirt was only too happy to drink up. The tin sitting atop rattled in an unspoken breeze with a slow steady beat that reminded Nyla faintly of a death march.

"That doesn't look like something straight out of a Steven King novel," Bones replied.

"If it means I won't have to cuddle up with the creepy crawlies of this planet, it's my kinda place," Yasmine praised, dashing ahead to pry at a door that was already scarcely clinging to its hinges.

"Hell, Roy, you can't just wander off alone." Bones chased after her and Kirk followed in his wake.

Whitney glanced back, at Nyla, teeth tearing away at his chapped lower lip. "Need me to hold your hand, Ny?"

Nyla scoffed silently, glanced down and sauntered up to the stranded captain, tapping his nose. "It's Doctor, thanks."

The laughter from her friends echoed in the one room shack, dragging her through its doors and into the brilliant atmosphere her crew had instilled in only a few meager moments. Despite the night encroaching from outside, the few solar flares perched in the corners kept the room from giving in to the dark. Kirk was already claiming a wall to sleep against while wrestling with Yasmine for the thickest blanket. Bones chastised them, sorting their rations into five equal piles. Nyla scooped up a ratty blanket from their supplies and plopped down beside Bones, claiming the protein bar piece that looked the biggest.

"We don't have coffee, do we?" she asked through a full mouth.

"'Fraid not darlin'. You'll just have to brave the morning like the rest of us." Bones swiped at one of the pieces of her meal she accidently spit on him.

Nyla grinned bashfully as he used the same finger to knock against her chin. Whitney traipsed in, ignoring his portion of the food and pouting in a corner with his arms crossed over his chest.

"There's an extra blanket for you. We had more crew when we started," Yasmine offered. She was the only one able to speak to him without losing all rational thoughts. Whitney disregarded her too and Yasmine shrugged, and stretched out between Nyla and Kirk. "But now that we're all stuffed in here, someone had better get used to cuddling me," she commanded.

"With Jim snoring like a fucking garbage disposal on steroids, none of us have to worry about that pesky sleeping thing anyway, Roy," Bones input. He tilted his head, chewing thoughtfully on his own dinner. "But you knew that already, right?" A smirk followed up the teasing accusation that just made Kirk groan and Yasmine wink.

The lieutenant yanked Nyla down by her arm and drew her under the blanket when no one moved to follow her previous request. "It's about to get real cold," she said, yawning straight in Nyla's face. "How much do you think we walked today, Doc?" she addressed Bones through eyes barely held open. "Marathon at minimum, right? It's completely different on this terrain than on those treadmills. My legs feel like those shitty noodles from the cafeteria…" Yasmine let out one more yawn before slipping into unconsciousness.

Kirk was staring at her, his gaze soft and just as weary as every soul in the room.

"You alright, James?" Nyla asked.

A shake of his head cleared an emotion Nyla was all too familiar with from his eyes. He promptly swiped his food and laid on his blanket to eat it. Nyla rolled to face Bones, wondering if her eyes glossed over like Kirk's when she watched him. Kirk had said something about her having feelings for the resident doctor while they were escaping, and she was tired of denying the truth behind his words. Bones roused himself to check the secured door and single window, voicing no current threats to Kirk.

When he swept up a thermoregulating blanket and settled in the single space left between Nyla and the front wall, she felt the barbed hook of something she dared not name snare her heart. His arm propped his head and he let out a long slow breath before the cool evening chased away the tension in his muscles. And when those oh so soft, painfully sincere eyes fell on hers, she didn't look away. He was noble in danger; Kirk was rash and Yasmine was bold. All Nyla had was her words, and tonight they didn't feel like enough; tonight she reached out to find his hand and twisted her fingers with his because they were not on the _Enterprise_ and they were not doctors right now. They were castaways with only a merciless forest as witness.

His grip was loose, just waiting for her to pull away. She gave a quick squeeze to his hand and a hesitant smile pulled at his bone tired lips. Sleep rose up with a touch more gentle than that of a lover, claiming her just as adamantly.


	7. Shameless

**Hey my loves!** **You have my word that I have not abandoned this story and will not until it's done! I'm just dedicated to writing well and in character and sometimes the rest of real life gets in the way of that. Please enjoy this new installment :)**

People were supposed to roll around in their sleep, right? Because if Yasmine remembered correctly she had fallen asleep next to Nyla, not haphazardly sprawled on Jim's upper half and drooling more than she had in a month. As the rotted Drususian roof let dew seep through and onto her back, she gingerly peeled herself off of him and patted away at the damp stain on his chest as if he'd even be fazed by it.

A raucous snore rang out from his still sleeping form, dragging her attention up to his slack face where her favorite eyes were still hidden from view. A small part of her wanted him to be awake for this, to see the sleep draining from his eyes and find out what was left when he finally regarded her leaning over him so innocently in the morning light.

But that was a very small part. The rest of her knew to move up and away from his soft glow before she stayed enraptured forever.

She had to leap her way to a standing position to get around the masses of bodies and it was only when she cleared to the other side of the tiny hut that she remembered Max Whitney's existence by nearly stepping on him.

"The potatoes, not my potatoes…" he whined at her feet between sluggish snores and she had to stifle her giggles.

A humid breeze licked at Yasmine's back through the cracks in the door as she portioned the last protein bar into fifths and chewed on an end piece, doing her best to ignore how the grime on the walls probably didn't feel too different than her unwashed body. She traced doodles like mazes against her own thigh, something Jim liked to do if she thought about it too hard.

A third voice in the symphony of morning noises rang out to rein her thoughts back in and she turned to see one chief psychologist yawning delicately from where she was nestled under McCoy.

"You're up early, Yasmine," Nyla commented when her eyes landed on the engineer, though her gaze widened and she bolted upright when she discovered how ensnared she was with the man next to her.

"And isn't it a good morning, princess?" Yasmine's eyebrows rose accusingly to pin the other woman down. "You're shit at subtlety."

Nyla stood and brushed at the remains of her dress slowly, her resigned sigh clouding as a faint blush on her cheeks. "Yeah, I guess so." She gazed at McCoy a moment more before meeting Yasmine's eyes again.

The taller woman, for one, had her jaw hanging on the dirt floor. "C'mon, I've been waiting to give you hell for this and suddenly you're just gonna confirm?"

"Sure, why not." She now had the upper hand and gave a wide grin. "Now concerning you…"

A few millennia would've passed before Yasmine considered Whitney a savior, but he came to her rescue this once with a resounding cry, "I'll fight all of you!"

The women swiveled toward him as he woke himself up and the yelling finally roused the other two heavy sleepers as well. Whitney rubbed his face, smearing dirt around and just barely missing his eyes, and Yasmine wondered how he could've possibly been given a ship to captain.

Her own captain was suddenly at her side with his groggy voice saying, "Not sure if I'm happy he didn't wander off last night."

She swatted at him and threw a glare that couldn't have hurt a fly. "Might wanna work on your diplomacy, Captain."

"Diplomacy my ass," McCoy piped up before cracking what seemed like too many vertebrae up his spine. "It'd feel a little easier if we weren't stranded like a damn reality show."

They all stumbled around and ate in restless silence as an orchestra of insect noises struck up outside the hut, singing shrill background music for a less than pretty picture. Whitney was grumpily munching and babbling on about how his ship's away supplies would've been better than the protein bar, leaving Nyla to press her side into McCoy's to distract both of them. Her gaze flitted from the other doctor's mouth to his eyes as they spoke in low tones and Yasmine could feel the mush from across the room.

Her casanova captain on the other hand kept a distance that was maybe to focus on planning, maybe to warily think about Yasmine the way she was of him. She occasionally felt his eyes searching, easing onto her like waves onto a sandy shoreline, though always when she was turned away. Her regard of his slouched form was heavy as if she'd never seen such a man before.

Apparently all it took was a little danger-filled absence to make her heart not know what the hell was going on.

Captain Whitney, bless his rotten soul, was completely oblivious to all the poignant glances and even stooped to reach directly between Nyla and McCoy for a blanket from the ground, griping, "I slept so bad last night I'll probably need a nap later today."

"Can I suggest outside? Maybe the ground will be softer," McCoy huffed, earning a loving slap on the wrist from the petite woman.

"Doctor's orders, eh?" There was ignorant pride dripping from his voice. "I'll try that now."

He marched out into the morning sun, apparently forgetting that the danger of the outside world wouldn't have vanished overnight and so Yasmine went after him in hopes of stifling anything stupid he'd do next. Jim was hot on her heels and bits of the door broke off in their hands as it slumped aside for them.

Yasmine was a few hours away from being completely accustomed to the lush greenery sprouting from every direction and she wasn't even surprised when mugginess wrapped around the trio and she breathed more of it in. Another beat later and the pair of doctors followed them outside in solidarity. Despite the migration stillness fell on them once again, though this time Jim was left at her side with his bouncing nervous tick pushing his elbow into hers at a steady rhythm.

Shoving her hands deep in her jumpsuit pockets and fiddling with the phaser still rested in one of them, she said, "Look, I'm all for action but we could've figured out what we were doing inside where visibility wasn't an issue."

Before anyone could offer a response a faint sparkling sound picked up from behind her, growing louder and more familiar by the second. Yasmine whirled toward the ending transporter noise to find Uhura standing there with a bundle of fabrics propped on her hip.

"Thank god it's you all!" she breathed, then tapped into her earpiece. "Away party located, we'll be ready to beam shortly."

Nyla rushed forward to wrap the woman in a hug. "Can I say that I love you? I'm just so happy for a real rescue! We can beam now, no need to wait."

Uhura laughed before pulling away to toss a clean black jumpsuit at each person. "Sulu's worried about contamination and I think you're ready to change anyway." Turning to the one unfamiliar face, she extended a hand. "And I'm Lieutenant Uhura, sir, you must be Captain Whitney."

"That's a complicated name, are you a complicated woman? I would've gotten stranded sooner if I'd known all these fresh faces were gonna come save me." His leering caught her off guard and she ended the handshake as soon as it began.

"Sir, for your safety," Jim forced a laugh through gritted teeth, "I suggest you at least attempt to be professional with the Lieutenant."

Yasmine used her lean frame as a shield to block Whitney from Uhura's view as she approached the other woman. "I'll be saving most of my questions for Mr. Scott, but are there transporter problems I should look into once we're back?"

"You're asking what took so long, Yaz."

"I'm the engineer, if something's wrong with the system I need to know." But after a sheepish smile she added, "But yes, I've been on this damn planet too long."

They shoved like schoolmates and Uhura smiled widely while tapping her earpiece again. Suddenly she brushed past all of them with more frantic tapping. "Spock? Spock, can you hear me? _Enterprise_ , come in. Come on, dammit!"

"Lieutenant, what's wrong?"

"Shit, we were afraid of this." She closed her eyes, willing it to all go away before facing Jim again. "The Drususians have been trying to get a lock on the _Enterprise_ , most likely to jam communication functions. We've avoided it so far but they apparently caught up. We're supposed to beam any second now and if that doesn't happen then they got to the transporters, too."

The tattered group dangled at the end of baited breath as moment after moment dragged away and they were still on the planet. Finally it was long enough and Uhura shook her head though it was still held high.

Whitney groaned, "So we're still stranded but with an extra mouth to feed and no more food?"

McCoy patiently waited to see if anyone else wanted to input before he bellowed, "Good god, man, it's not a captain's job to despair!"

"Yeah, I usually leave that to you, Bones." Jim's clap on the back rang out and would have echoed if not for the moss bedding the ground.

But it was all just faint bickering to Yasmine, who whirled toward the back of the hut and let her gaze fall on what they'd all nearly tripped over the night before – a mass of overgrown and gnarled-together pieces and parts from ancient technology, even by earth standards. Parts from the likes of grounded cars of the time and the first wired computers.

She walked over and started picking her way through it, brushing rust away from what she remembered studying as an engine part and saying, "Uhura, when the Drususians were tracking the _Enterprise_ could you tell what technology they were using? Or how they intended to jam her?"

"Lower-frequency radars than our own that could overpower our systems."

Whitney spoke up when Yasmine pulled up a few more pieces. "You think you're gonna just science the shit out of this?"

"No, sir," she let wicked smile flick across her lips, "I'm going to engineer the shit out of it."

"Just please for the love of god watch out for tetanus in all that ancient crap," McCoy hissed.

Yasmine nodded dismissively with her newfound sense of purpose coursing under her skin and she gathered the first few fragments she'd need. "Get comfortable 'cause this might take awhile, but I think I can get us back our transporter."

She set to work and the crowd dispersed for the most part, with McCoy trailing after Nyla back inside the hut for another round of inventory and Kirk managing to engage Whitney in a tense enough conversation about Starfleet administration. Uhura lingered with Yasmine and immediately became a second set of hands, tossing the engineer what she needed and even pushing away thick flyaways when she was too engrossed to notice.

At a pause in the clanking around, Uhura spoke up. "So what exactly happened down here? How did you get Kirk and Harlow back?"

"We actually didn't get the chance to help them," Yasmine scoffed as she pried two cylinders apart. "They'd broken out of the castle's dungeon by the time we broke in. All McCoy and I got out of it was managing to escape with captain jackass."

"So he's been this terrible the whole time?"

Yasmine gestured to where Whitney was snapping at Jim with his arms coiled like an angry five-year old. "From the first second we found him."

"God, and Commander Y'hara is one of the hardest workers I've seen. I hate that she's stuck under him."

"And I know it's driving Jim crazy that Whitney's allowed to represent Starfleet same as him."

Uhura paused, Yasmine cringed. "Is it 'Jim' now, Yaz?"

"Nyota, please," she brandished her phaser before aligning two pieces to weld together, "not while I'm working."

Uhura's eyes burned into Yasmine from the side but the latter just cleared her throat and blazed into the metal before her, doing her best to block thoughts of her captain from her mind. It was a wonder she didn't jerk and slice someone's arm off when the exact voice she was chasing away lilted from behind her.

"Ladies! How are things going?"

"Captain, with all due respect," Uhura tossed over her shoulder, "that's your bargaining voice and I'm just beginning to understand the setup Yaz put together. Whitney should be your job."

Jim sighed and crouched beside them, his nose childishly poking right in between. "I'm begging you, you're my communications officer. Can't you communicate with him?"

Yasmine played witness to a staring contest between the pair that had probably threatened to burn down a building or two at the academy, but finally Uhura grunted as she stood and stretched her long legs.

"There should be overtime for this."

"Why is my undying gratitude not enough for anybody anymore?"

Uhura waved him off with a smile and strutted toward Whitney, and if she wasn't busy trying to save their asses Yasmine would've wanted to watch the ensuing commotion. Instead she finished another thin band of welding and rocked back into a fully seated position to reach for another rusting chunk.

Jim was still right there and when his eyes searched her a little too long she cleared her throat. "Look, I'll take some of that undying gratitude if you'll find me something like a screwdriver."

"The tool or the drink?"

"Either would help." She leaned into him with a nudge and suddenly didn't want to lean away as the stress and exhaustion seemed to vanish where his muscle met hers. But he quirked a smile and left them both hanging for the muddy meadow while she turned back to the intricate wiring board she was digging up.

Minutes ticked by and so did a few pestering insects, one of which Yasmine was smacking away when her hand collided into Jim having returned. He handed her what was only half of what she was looking for, but thankfully the important half. She jammed the flathead into a crevice and was prying them apart when he spoke up.

"I'm glad you're ok, Yaz."

"And I wasn't even the one held captive by aliens. You're lucky, too."

Her chuckle bounced off his sobered expression as he sat across from her, his cosmic blues taking her in and threatening to say what she'd been stiff-arming since they reunited.

"You know, Bones and Nyla seem to have it figured out."

"It, Jim?"

He cleared his throat while Yasmine began furiously untangling more wires. "Themselves. I mean, we've done a lot of these dangerous missions together and haven't been too shabby behind the scenes either."

Yasmine didn't quite know why, but the longer she stalled the less scary was the pounding of blood in her ears. "Great sex tends to help morale, hm?"

"Something Bones is apparently gonna give me hell about for awhile." They laughed together and she thought she was out of the woods until he continued. "Look, I thought about –"

"Ow, shit!" Her palm grazed a freshly seared engine part as Jim's dangerous talk distracted her and after rubbing spit on it she said as delicately as possible, "Maybe we should talk later. The therapist is in the hut anyway, why don't you go talk to her?"

Jim pulled off the kicked puppy look well but sauntered off anyway, though Yasmine's nerves didn't fade with his absence. Instead the jumble of stray parts she was sorting through rendered themselves useless and her half-creation came to a complete standstill. No antennae, no signal minimizer, and not a damn clue why the thought of Jim kissing her for something more than pleasure was enticing as it was.

And terrifying, of course.

But she'd never get a chance to explore that feeling if they were trapped on that godforsaken planet for eternity so she snatched up another coil of aluminum to experiment with. Piece after piece broke too easily or wasn't a proper conductor or just wasn't cooperating with her ancient Tetris game and by the time she noticed Jim scurrying back from the hut with wide eyes she was ready to nosedive into oblivion.

"Look," she huffed when he was standing next to her again, "I aced mech history but how am I supposed to use a goddamn muffler?! People were cavemen back then."

"Speaking of cavemen, don't go near the hut right now."

Yasmine nearly choked. "At least you've got a bargaining chip now." She pushed the heels of her palms into her eye sockets and rubbed until the bursts behind her eyelids were more colorful than the vegetation around her. "This fucking jammer isn't getting anywhere, it's like I'm in day one of the Academy again."

A loud _clang_ erupted when she tossed a pipe away and it landed on a sheet of metal, and apparently it startled Jim into action.

"Yaz, hey, looks like it's time for a breather." His gentle hand to her arm stifled any protests and further productivity and he helped her to a standing position. "Nyla and I ran across this little waterfall not far from here, whaddya say we go wash up a bit?"

She hummed a note of contentment at the thought of feeling even slightly cleaner and her mouth twitched into a smile like his. "Maybe it'll have better water pressure than 4112, hm?"

"There's the Yaz I know. Thought I'd lost you for a minute there."

Maybe she should say something about how she'd never stray too far from him, how she wanted to always be the woman he knew too well, but instead she strolled silently beside him toward the waterfall. It didn't take long for the sound of rushing water to lure them onto a small muddy precipice followed by a brief climb down to the pooling of crystal clear water.

She peeled off her jumpsuit and he his ragged party clothes, leaving skivvies on for a semblance of decency. Her touch breaking the water's surface also broke the cord of tension wrapped around her spine where Jim's hand then took up residence, easing them in as the cool water slowly climbed higher and higher on their frames. Drususian crickets sang as the noon sun filtered through broad leaves onto the pair and splashing water kept their quiet conversations a secret for only the nearest trees to hear.

"Water's a good look on you," Jim mused as she began to scoop it onto her shoulders.

"You sure it's not just the wet t-shirt contest over here?"

His head lolled with the grin tugging at his mouth. "Not this time. Your tats look great though."

A slight blush blossomed and she glanced down at herself. It was true she had a fair few tattoos and they never got to see real sunshine, and the ink now stood out almost delicately against her damp bronze skin.

He reached for her again, this time his fingers grazing the constellations etched on her ribcage as he dragged her to him and pressed a longing kiss to her burning lips. New energy pulsed through her and she gripped him tighter than before, not letting him go until they were trembling from the strength of the embrace.

Her mouth melted into his a few more times, tasting every bit of salt and dirt and tension those lips had borne in the days past before she pulled back to smirk up at him again.

"Well I'm glad prison didn't change you in that regard."

The warmth of his body still against hers was nearly suffocating in the humidity around them and yet his gleaming smile somehow still seared hotter. "I wasn't about to be sucking face with the aliens, if that's what you're saying."

"If you're gonna do that to me," she swayed away toward the steady stream of water from the rocks above, "guess I should wash my face, hm?"

The actual waterfall was a siren beckoning to her, dragging her away from the open and unruly expanse of ocean that was Jim Kirk and she followed it willingly, relishing the cooler water draping over her form to scrape at the filth caked on her skin that Drusus had so kindly offered. Yasmine dragged her hands through the length of her hair, stretching and twisting her body for the benefit of the man behind her who was thankfully still silent. They could do all the important talking later, if ever.

A gentle shove forced her exit and then a spray of droplets signaled Jim's body under the water and she turned to catch his darkened hair shaking in her face, eliciting the first childish giggles she'd felt since beaming down. She shoved him back and they wrestled for the water, glinting eyes and wide grins sparking this way and that.

"Alright, alright, I give." She let her hands slide down his arms in lazy defeat, relinquishing herself to his guidance as he slowly turned her around and began kneading at her shoulders.

They'd never had such a spare moment that wasn't spent with greedy hands pulling at clothes but Jim passed over her bra as his skilled fingers worked through her taut muscles. The miles between them since they'd reunited seemed to close as he wouldn't let her falter under his touch, instead letting his lips follow delicious suit and speak volumes of sweetness into her skin.

Another set of tattoos sat along her spine, mandalas graduating in size that he had kissed before and he set to work kissing again with a heated open mouth. On his way up the simple presses turned into playful bites that scraped at something inside her and by the time his teeth were at the bend in her neck she had to whip around to stop the smile on her mouth from tearing her cheeks in two. She wasn't getting into heaven anyway after that sinful mouth of his.

"Yaz," he breathed into her, smile faltered but achingly gentle, nearly stumbling on the slippery rocks beneath them as he leaned into her.

Her nose was rested next to his, lips grazing as she responded, "I know, I know." She knew the words caught in his throat and the ones in her own, hammering in contrast to her heartbeat softly thundering against his under the spray of the waterfall.

But she wasn't about to let the threats on that planet prematurely push her to word vomit about something she wasn't even sure was a good idea, a trait she and Jim shared for better or for worse.

"Much as I'd like to put in for vacation time right here," he eased off with a grab to her ass that she returned, "that jammer isn't gonna stop distracting you till it's done."

"Blame Scotty for my work ethic when we get back."

They patted dry and redressed best they could before treading reluctantly back toward their little blip of civilization and Whitney's bothersome yammering echoed to interrupt their last kiss as Jim's groan rumbled against her lips.


	8. Earned It

Nyla jabbered away as they cleaned up their mess, intent on keeping the conversation flowing so there would be no need to fill lapses with physical things—things easier said with bodies. She had slept less than the time it took one to blink last night and had come to the conclusion that love was not healthy. She could not _think_ when she was around those brown eyes, eyes that just melted every time she offered him a smile. It was dangerous holding all that power.

She jolted when he reached for the blanket she methodically folded. The soft material fluttered to the ground between them, leaving a deafening void in its aftermath. Her hands fisted, her eyes squeezed shut. Sleeping beside him had not been the mistake; her error had been in ever leaving his grip the first time. Now, it was all she could think about. Not the mission or her friends, or even the fact that the shitty wooden hut did not even boast a lock. Uhura had come all the way down here to save their asses and gotten herself stranded as well in the attempt. Nyla wished for her presence now more now than even when she was imprisoned with the captain, though she doubted an extra body would dissuade the unquestionable heat in her stomach from trickling slowly further south.

"Are you ok?" Bones asked her, the crook of his index finger reaching out to trace down her cheekbone and rest under her chin, forcing her eyes up to those which she had been studying only moments prior. The question was routinely directed from her to just about every other person in her life. She couldn't remember the last time someone had turned it on her. She could read everything on his face: a determination in the set of his brow, a tenderness in the touch of his hands, a hesitation behind his lips that made her heart ache to assure him of their mutual feelings.

"Ny?" When he spoke her name, she realized she still hadn't responded. "I'm not psychic like you. You have a little bit of an advantage here with your Doctor Phil gig. Mind helping me out?"

She ducked to retrieve the blanket, maneuvering around him to tuck it safely back in waterproof emergency backpack. She braced her hands on her knees, steeling her nerves. She needed his hands off her while she pieced together her frazzled thoughts.

"Hell, or you could ignore me. That works too. I always find that option very mature." Bones sighed, massaging at the bridge of his nose. "I mean we only work together. It's not like leaving things unsaid ever gets awkward."

She could be brave; she could take a risk. Nyla reached out to take his hand, lacing her fingers between his long nimble ones just like she had last night. Before another exasperated sigh could fight past his lips, she tugged him closer with a quick pull, her chest a breath away from his, her nose tilted up to be in line with his jaw. Her life was a carefully constructed house of cards and with one wrong breath she would knock it down. With a release of her baited breath, she grinned with abandon as she watched it all tumble down.

"Ok, you being quiet this long is freaking me out. You know what they say when the demons stop causing trouble, that's when you should worry."

"You're comparing me to a demon now?"

He smiled in relief at her voice, free hand pushing back the wild strands of hair from her face. His fingers scraped against her scalp gently, sending shivers fleeing from his touch, taking up their hiding place directly between her legs. She had the most exceptionally unhelpful thought that if he insisted on touching her, that it at least be the place that required it most.

"Well you are rather tempting," he murmured.

"Like a Danish? Cheese Danish? Those are the best? Have you ever been to this little bakery in downtown New York called Cupcakes and Things? They have the absolute best…"

He was kissing her, brief and burning from her lips all the way down her chest and settling with a tremulous flutter like a shot of well-aged whiskey. Bones pulled back, blinked in disbelief at his actions, hands poised framing, though not touching her face, mouth slack.

"Shit, I didn't mean to cut you off. I was just watching your lips and I had to kiss you. I'm so sorry. Can…"

"Shut up," Nyla said. Exhaustion boiled her down, leaving only the most primitive instinct: _want._ Because he always smiled at her in the hallway, and he let her vent when no one else cared to listen, and if she had to shove down the feelings that bubbled up from even his chaste glance one more moment, she felt she might burst with them. She craved Bones, needed to recreate the breathless moan that had escaped his lips when he kissed her. She needed everything he would give her propriety and regulations be damned—she would have him.

"You're telling _me_ to shut up?" He laughed in incredulity.

She put a hand over his mouth, backing him into the hut wall. "Do it again." She said alluringly, desperately. "Please, if you don't mind. I want to kiss you. I want all of you actually."

"Oh, thank god."

This time she was prepared for his tantalizing lips. She grinned against him, relishing the sweet pull in her gut that anchored them together. The harsh stubble that had grown along his jaw scraped against her inquisitive hands and she vowed to never let him near a razor again; the sting was too delicious. All the bantering, the late nights, the civil meetings had added together to create this moment of absolute recklessness. Restraints and hesitations were not a thing of this planet. His hand pushed up her top to sample the skin heated just from the thought of what was to come.

"Do something for me," she murmured when he pulled back to undo the clasp at the top of her dress, letting the fabric fall to accumulate around her feet.

"What?" He hummed his response, focused on undoing the claps of her bra that kept her breasts from him.

"Me?"

A throaty chuckle fell from his lips along with her bra. "Yes ma'am." His hands traveled down her sides of her breasts and over her hips to grip the back of her thighs where he issued a firm squeeze. "Jump," he growled out the instruction and she had a hard time convincing her wobbly legs to comply, but then they were wrapped around his waist and she was the one plastered against the graciously cool wall.

She sought out his mouth again, delving into a kiss too long denied. His hand splayed against her back, pressing their chests together, one heart beat jumpstarting the other into high gear. She slid her fingers through his hair, gripping the short strands as best she could, rocking her body down to meet the ever growing need making an appearance in his pants. Her hands wandered down his back, under his shirt and shoved it up to claim his skin.

"Off?" he murmured, teeth catching her lower lip before she could reply.

"You can keep the cape if you want," she teased.

Bones replied by setting her down. She watched with rapt attention as inch by inch of his body was revealed to her: first that broad chest, then the hard on she'd felt prodding her previously. His eyebrow quirked up and he dipped a pointed nod to her stalled hands. He reached out to loop a finger through her thin underwear, and pull her against him through its means. The satin fabric threatened to give way at tug and Nyla knew she might fall to pieces as well if he insisted on looking down at her through those lust laden lashes. "As great as your ass looks in these…" He feathered a kiss to the side of her throat as he slid them down to join the rest of their clothes.

"Leo?" She murmured, lungs snagging when those need blown eyes snapped up to meet hers. He grinned with such wicked intentions she scarcely reminded herself to breathe.

"I like that on your lips. Want to scream it for me?" he purred, leaning to brush his lips against the shell of her ear as he spoke.

"The others," she managed to pant out between his incessant hands and her body's own demands.

"They call me doctor," he allowed.

And then there was the wall behind her and his body in front. She felt like she might be trapped in the heavy grip of her own want if he did not hurry the hell up. Feeling none too inclined to wait, her hand reached out to trace along his collar bones, down the center of his chest and over the lines of his hips. He fidgeted and rumbled a resonating low growl in his throat.

"Well, is the doctor ticklish?" she asked, mouth curving up in delight as he reacted to her touch.

"The psychologist is getting dangerously close to certain sensitive body parts."

Her hand found his length, wrapping around the base and beginning to pump without haste. "Am I?" she asked, earning only a groan in reply.

A catch of her knee drew one leg to wrap around his waist. Nyla grinned as the sunlight filtering through the blinds glowed against his rosy cheeks. He drew her hand away from his manhood, pressing it against the wall still chilled from the night prior as he formed a knot of their fingers. Breathing mingled as tumultuous as a tornado and hearts hammered away to keep pace. His eyes softened for a moment, the haze of desire forgotten as he watched Nyla's eyes flutter shut as the feeling of his need nudging away between her legs. "Ny…?" he asked, the rest of the question lost in his marveling of her bare and covetous before him.

"Haven't we waited long enough already?" Her free hand found his ass, aiding in his entrance.

A hollowness she had long since neglected was filled and overflowed with the sensation. The smirk on his lips was enough to make her truly want to scream but a quick press of his mouth on hers stifled the urge. The only sound that dripped from her was the moans the deep, deliberate roll of his hips elicited. Bones smelled like sweat and need and just _fuck_ , it was all Nyla could do to keep a fast grip on his shoulders _._ His tongue swept out over hers, mimicking the explicit act they performed.

He lifted his head to meet her gaze and she was lost, simply so lost in everything that was this man she thought could come simply from looking at him. Their bodies slid together, a beautifully synchronized dance meant for no audience or judges. He kept one hand on the small of her back just like he had the first time they danced in the Drusian ballroom, guiding her hips up to meet each surging thrust he offered. The other remained at the side of her throat, over her pulse point, keeping her head tilted up just so. Again and again they met, each press urging her into that blinding bliss. His head fell to the crook of her neck, teeth bared as he drank in each drop of pleasure these sparse moments offered.

He might have said her name, he might have cursed or been praying; the only thing she knew was the accent that laced his voice sent her toppling head over heels into a paradise so fathomless she lost track of everything but the feel of him pulsing inside her. A few lazy thrusts finished him off as well and he braced his arms on either side of Nyla's head to catch his breath.

Nyla slid her leg to the floor, muscles burning from the exertion and still singing from release. A kiss was dusted against her hair as Bones said, "When I imagined this, there was a bed involved and a few less hostiles on our asses."

"Yours is the only ass I care about right now." Nyla smiled, raising on her toes to kiss his lips chastely. He caught her by the nape of the neck, refusing to relinquish the touch just yet.

"But next time we do it your way," she allowed once they parted.

A cautious grin stretched his cheeks, catching the warmth of the sun in his glowing brown eyes, turning them molten. "Next time?" he repeated. "Thought you didn't do relationships at work."

"Well, I just did you, so I think that ship has sailed. Also, my heart does weird stuff when you're around and I'm tired of ignoring it."

"Weird like butterflies or weird like I should break out my med kit?" he taunted.

She punched his arm weakly, leaning into the hug he caught her in. "You gonna let me take you on a proper date first?" he murmured against her temple.

"I think date spots aboard the _Enterprise_ include Sulu's garden, the gym, and the bar."

"Whatever you want, darlin'."

It was the raucous voice of Max Whitney that jarred them back into the glaring present. Bones silently handed her one of the spare navy jumpsuits Uhura had brought along for them and reluctantly the pair redressed. Nyla spared one comment in absence of his famed cape and he retaliated by pulling the zipper in the front of her suit all the way up to her chin. "That cancels out the dress, right?" he teased.

"You don't get to be protective yet, Leonard." She rose on her toes to kiss his forehead before striding over to pull open the door just as Max Whitney about barreled into it with Uhura practically piggy backing him for the glowing rock he clutched in his hand.

"Hot potato?" Nyla guessed at the game.

Uhura threw an irritated sigh at Whitney. "This idiot claims that this rock, which is coated in the magma of the planet and mind you is highly unstable, will somehow cancel out the Drususian blocking signal instead of killing us all when he drops it and it blows up." Uhura paused to squint at Nyla. "Least some of us are dying happy," she commented on the prominent afterglow.

"I'm telling you, doll face. You just gotta have the right hands and know how to deal with this puppy. Now, where's that mechanic girl with the tight ass and sharp tongue? Not that I don't appreciate your irascible company, angel." He blew a kiss towards Uhura who appeared to be debating between vomiting and punching him so hard he would do just that.

"She's an engineer, you slimy bastard." Bones delicately plucked the stone from Whitney's hands in his distraction and Nyla quickly dove to retrieve a hazardous waste cylinder. Maybe the whole sex thing had linked up their minds as well as their hearts. "And we're putting this right back where you found it. We don't need to give them any more reason to want our asses."

Nyla blew Whitney a mocking kiss while he fumbled for fresh words. "We've already got a damn fine captain," she said.

With a glance towards where Bones swept up a backpack she wondered if she might also add a damn fine new boyfriend to that list.


End file.
